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JESUS OF NAZARETH 



BOOKS BY WILLIAM E. BARTON, D.D. 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The Story of His Life and the Scenes of His Ministry, with a chapter on The Christ of Art, 
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14 Beacon Street, BOSTON 175 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO 




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JESUS OF NAZARETH 



THE STORY OF HIS LIFE 

AND 

THE SCENES OF HIS MINISTRY 



WITH A CHAPTER ON 



THE CHRIST OF ART 



By WILLIAM E. BARTON, D. D. 



AUTHOR OF THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW CENTURY ', ' THE PSALMS AND THEIR 

H AS RELATED TO HEALTH;" "CO 
A HERO IN HOMESPUN;" ETC. 



story;" "faith as related to health;" "consolation;' 



WITH MAPS BY GENERAL HENRY B. CARRTNGTON, U. S. A. 



j > 3 > J j ' , , \ > 

WITH THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS 



BOSTON 

or K Gbe pilgrim press cmc^o 
1903 







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copy a 



Copyright, 1903 
By WILLIAM E. BARTON 



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The' 'Henneberry Press 

55 2 -556 Wabash Ave. 

Chicago 



the half-tone cuts, with \ few exceptions, 
were made by 
the bucher engraving company, 
columbus, ohio 



TO THE CHURCH AND CONGREGATION 

TO WHICH I MINISTER 

AND TO THOSE I HAVE SERVED IN FORMER YEARS 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 




OUTLINE MAP OF PALESTINE 
BY GENERAL HENRY B. CARRINGTON, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 



Soon after my return from Palestine in 1902, and the publication of 
my book of travel, "The Old World in the New Century," I began the 
preparation of what I intended should be a small book on "The Places 
Where Jesus Lived and Worked." Books have a habit of outgrowing 
the first intent of their authors. The little book grew until it had become 
a Life of Christ. The undertaking from which I might have shrunk at 
the outset came about naturally, and its accomplishment has been a glad, 
though not an easy task. 

There are many Lives of Christ, and good ones. The publication of 
the works of Strauss and Renan, about forty years ago, was followed by 
many controversial volumes, directly or indirectly in reply. These have 
still great value, though most of them were written a generation ago. The 
present book is written, not to maintain a theory, but to make the Life of 
Jesus among men seem real. It does not attempt to displace any of the 
great works now known and loved, or even to invite comparison with 
them, but only to find and fill its own place as a reverent and sincere 
attempt to interpret again the one inexhaustible Life. 

The original purpose of describing the places associated with. the min- 
istry of Jesus has not been forgotten, and some special attention has been 
given to their description, together with photographs made on the ground, 
many of them by the author himself, or his companions in travel. The 
camera has invaded Palestine since the well-known Lives of Christ were 
written; and it is possible to show the appearance of the scenes of the 
ministry of Jesus in a manner until recently impossible. Moreover, the art 
of half-tone illustration, which was unknown when most of the standard 
Lives of Christ were published, now makes the wealth of the greatest 
galleries in the world available for a work like this. This single fact is a 
sufficient justification for a new Life of Christ. 

In the matter of the illustrations I am greatly indebted to two friends 
and former parishioners. Major W. H. Williams, Special Agent of the 
United States Treasury Department for Europe, has been unremitting in 
his labor to secure for me in Paris and other cities the latest and most 
notable of recent paintings. Through him I have procured the pictures 
of that eccentric genius, Jean Beraud, whom he visited on my behalf, 
and other paintings hitherto unpublished in America. The other friend, 
Mr. Frank Wood, of Boston, placed at my disposal his large collection 
of rare original prints. His Rembrandt etchings and Durer wood cuts 
enrich the volume, with Claude Mellan's wonderful one-line portrait of 
Christ and other original and yet more valuable prints. Among the latter 
are the two little engravings of Finiguerra, the very oldest prints in the 
world. These superlatively rare originals, made in 1452, are reproduced 
in exact size expressly for this book. Two great paintings from Mr. 
Wood's collection, the wonderful head of Christ which forms the frontis- 
piece for the chapter on "Jesus as Art Reveals Him" and the beautiful 
Madonna by Correggio, were photographed for the first time for this 
volume by Mr. Baldwin Coolidge, photographer for the Museum of Fine 
Arts in Boston, and are copyrighted by Mr. Wood. 



PREFACE 



Mr. Frank T. Merrill, of Boston, and Mr. Corwin Knapp Linson, of 
New York, and Miss Annie Kirkpatrick, of Dundee, Scotland, have given 
me valued assistance. 

Mr. John Powell Lenox, of Oak Park, whose collection of Christ 
pictures embraces more than three thousand, and is said to be the best 
in America, and unsurpassed abroad, has contributed a number of valuable 
illustrations. 

I am indebted to Miss Estelle M. Hurl], not only for information 
gathered from her books, but especially for personal suggestions and 
assistance. Her book, "The Life of Our Lord in Art," is one which every 
minister may well aspire to own. 

Beside the contributions of these and other friends, appear a large 
number of photographs which I procured in Jerusalem, Cairo, Florence, 
Paris and London, and a number imported since, including several from 
the Hermitage collection in St. Petersburg. To these I have added some 
interesting examples of the work of our American artists. 

The maps in this book were made for it by General Henry B. Car- 
rington of the U. S. Regular Army, retired. General Carrington's maps 
in his "Battles of the Revolution" are standard. He has long been 
engaged on a work on "The Battles of the Bible," and has brought to 
these maps the results of his long Bible study, and has used the latest 
surveys. His effort has been to eliminate every unnecessary detail, and 
present accurately and clearly the places associated with the ministry of 
Jesus. 

It is no lack of willingness to acknowledge my obligations that 
restrains me from giving a list of the books to which I am indebted. At 
first the manuscript bristled with foot-notes, but I have cut them all out. 
In a ministry of nineteen years I have been attempting every week t") 
tell the story of Jesus, gathering material from all the books I could find; 
in bringing the results of this study together in a volume I have used 
comparatively few books. It would be easy to give the list of the latter, 
but the list would be meager and incomplete. I have kept at hand and 
have used all the best known Lives of Christ in English; but I mention 
only two — Edersheim, to whom I have referred most frequently for his 
knowledge of Jewish customs, and Andrews, whose chronology I have 
followed throughout. In a few places my own judgment would have 
been different, but I have thought it better to follow a clear and consistenr 
and familiar outline rather than to burden a work of this character with 
discussions of chronology. 

This book has been a growth. I had almost completed it before I 
realized that I had begun it. Every minister, consciously or unconsciously, 
is making, week by week, a Life of Christ. I found when I came to exam- 
ine my accumulated material that there was not an incident or discourse 
of Jesus on which I had not at some time preached. It was not difficult 
to make a large volume where a small one had been intended; the diffi- 
culty was to make one volume and not two. Hastening to finish the first 
draft before the summer vacation. I wrote the last words on the eve of 
my birthday, June 28. I have given the summer to its revision, and send 
it forth as an inadequate but sincere tribute to the Life of Him in whose 
service I hope to spend the years of my life., 






na&i 



1/ (mosC&su^ 



The Study of the First Church, 
Oak Park, Illinois, October 6, igoj. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

THE SONG AND THE STAR 

Bethlehem, December, B. C. 5 

Modern Bethlehem — The Road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem — Rachel's 
Tomb — David's Well — A Palestine Inn — The Young Carpenter and 
His Bride — Are We Sure of the Place of Jesus' Birth — The Church 
of the Virgin, Oldest in the World — The Grotto of the Nativity — 
Jerome and His Bible Translations — Modern Bethlehem the Field of 
the Shepherds — The Birth of Christ in Sonp- — Kepler's Computation 
of the Star of Bethlehem — The King of the Jews — The Two Embas- 
sies to the Cradle of Christ 25 

CHAPTER II 
THE HOLY CHILD 

The Bible and Childhood — Confucius Versus Christianity — A Little Child 
Shall Lead — The presentation in the Temple — Simeon and Anna — The 
Nature of Christ, Truly Divine and Truly Human — The House of the 
Herods — The Flight Into Egypt — The Sphinx and the Saviour 45 

CHAPTER III 
THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 
May, B. C. 4 to April, A. D. 8 
Good Things out of Nazareth — The Road from the Sea Coast — The Mod- 
ern Village — The Fountain of the Virgin — Modern Maidens of Naz- 
areth — A Nazareth Housekeeper — A Village Artisan — Was Joseph 
Older Than Mary — Who were the Lord's Brethren — The Home of a 
Madonna — Influence of the Home and Shop on the Life of Jesus.... 56 

CHAPTER IV 

THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 

April 8-15, A. D. 8 

Travel in Palestine — El-Bireh, Traditional Place of Discovery of Loss of 
the Boy Jesus — The Roman Roads — Country Byways — Hospitality in 
the Holy Land — Inns and Camps — Apocryphal Gospels — Jesus in the 
Temple — Influence of This Visit Upon His Life 71 

CHAPTER V 

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 

River Jordan, January, A. D. 27 

John the Baptist — Political and Religious Situation — Place of Baptism — 
The River Jordan — Reasons for Jesus' Baptism — The Descent of the 
Spirit — An Epoch in the Life of Jesus 81 

CHAPTER VI 
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 
January to February, A. D. 27 
The Wilderness of Judaea — The Temptation in Art — Reality of the Tempta- 
tion in Art — A Reality of the Temptation — Three Temptations or 
Four — Ambition in the Guise of Patriotism — Return Among Men... 90 



io CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

THE FIRST DISCIPLES 

February, A. D. 27 

The First Followers of Christ — Fishermen on a Vacation — An Evening 

with Jesus — The First Followers Seeking Others 101 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 

March, A. D. 27 

The Modern Cana — An Oriental Wedding — Jesus No Ascetic — A Miracle 

to Add to Human Joy 105 

CHAPTER IX 
THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 

April 11-17, A. D. 27 
(John 2: 12-25; 3:1-22) 
Jesus and His Family Visit Capernaum — The First Passover in Christ's 
Ministry — The Temple in the Time of Jesus — The Sale of Doves and 
Oxen — The High Priest as a Dealer in Pigeons — The First Cleansing 
of the Temple — The Visit of Nicodemus — The Spirituality of Man — The 
Need of Regeneration in 

CHAPTER X 
JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 
December, A. D. 27 
(John 4 : 1-26) 
Modern Shechem — Origin of the Samaritans — The Samaritan Pentateuch — 
Modern Sychar — Jacob's Well — The Revelation to the Woman — The 
First Christian Community — The Lord's Need, and the Needs of 
Men 120 

CHAPTER XI 

HE CAME TO HIS OWN 

Nazareth, April, A. D. 28 

The Return of Jesus to His Boyhood Home — The Change Noticed in Him 

by His Neighbors — The Service in the Synagogue — The Surorise of 

Jesus — His Rejection by His Townspeople 127 

CHAPTER XII 

THE HEALING CHRIST 

The Only Miracle of Healing Recorded of Christ's First Year's Ministry — 
The Reluctance of Jesus to Begin a Career as a Healer — A Discussion 
of Miracles as a Foundation of Faith — Religion for the Soul More 
Than for the Body — Some Examples of Christ's Miracles — The Leper 
— The Paralytic — The Centurian's Servant — The Daughter of Jairus — 
The Blind Men — The Failure of the Supernatural as a Means of Con- 
version — Faith Healing To-day 135 

CHAPTER XIII 
JESUS AND THE SABBATH 
Close of the First Year's Ministry — The Second Passover — The Healing 
at the Pool of Bethesda — The Legend of the Angel— How Errors 
have Crept into the Text, and How They Are Sometimes Corrected — 
The Occasions on which Jesus Disregarded, the Jewish Traditions of 
the Sabbath — Various Works of Healing — Rubbing out the Grain— 
The Ground of Jesus' Defense— The World's Need of a Sabbath— The 
Principle of Jesus Applied to Modern Life 155 



CONTENTS II 

CHAPTER XIV 
BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 
Capernaum, Summer, A. D. 28 

Jesus at Capernaum — Events which Happened There — Site of the Place — 
Visit to Tell Hum and Khan Minyeh — Chorazin — Bethsaida — Mag- 
d a l a — Tiberias — The Call of the Disciples — The Beauty of the Sea of 
Galilee 163 

CHAPTER XV 

THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 

Horns of Hattin, Midsummer, A. D. 28 

Jesus on the Mountain in Prayer — Preaching from Peter's Boat — The Call 

of the Disciples, and Their Character — A Tribute to Their Fidelity. .176 

CHAPTER XVI 

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 

Horns of Hattin, Midsummer, A. D. 28 

The Mountains of Scripture — Sinai and Hattin; the Decalogue and the 

Beatitudes — The Tradition of the Crusaders, and Their Battle — The 

Sermon and Its Message — Fulfilling the Law and More — The Work 

of Jesus Not Primarily Restorative, but Constructive 181 

CHAPTER XVII 
THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 
Machserus, Summer and Autumn, A. D. 28 
The Imprisonment of Tohn — Jesus Feasting while John Suffered — Wisdom 
Justified of Her Children— The New Better than the Old— A Misused 
Text of Scripture — "The Old Time Religion" — The Heroism of John — 
Greatest of the Old, but Least in the New 190 

CHAPTER XVIII 

THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 
Summer and Autumn, A. D. 28 

A New Group of Followers of Jesus — Mary of Magdala and Her Com- 
panions — A Slandered Woman — The Mother of Jesus and Her Attempt 
to Restrain Her Son — Mary and Martha — The Woman at the Phar- 
isee's Feast — The Woman with the Issue of Blood — The Remedies of 
Old World Physicians — The Sufferings of Womankind — The Widow 
of Nain — Oriental Funerals — Graves that Now Appear about Nain — 
The Raising of the Widow's Son 204 

CHAPTER XIX 

THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 
Autumn, A. D. 28 
A Change in the Method of Jesus' Instruction — The Material of Christ's 
Parables ; Illustrations from Common Life — The Eight Parables which 
Introduced the New Method — The Region of Decapolis — The Stilling 
of the Tempest — Swine in Galilee — The Healing of the Demoniac — 
The Request to Depart — The Third Preaching Tour — Return to 
Nazareth — Half-hearted Disciples — Imprisonment and Murder of 
John — The Mission of the Twelve — Our Debt to Them — Their 
Reports of the Teachings of Jesus — Have We Any Words of Jesus 
Aside from Those in the Gospels ? 222 



12 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XX 

THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 

Bethsaida Julias, April, A. D. 29 

The Two Bethsaidas — The Multitude on the Way to Jerusalem — The 

Loaves and the Fishes — The Purchasing Power of Our All — One 

Basket and Twelve — Fragments 234 

CHAPTER XXI 

THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 

Capernaum, April, A. D. 29 

Close of the Second Year of Christ's Ministry — The Crisis — The Tempta- 
tion of the Kingdom Renewed — The Mischief of Miracles — The Ser- 
mon that Made Enemies — Cold Hospitality at a Pharisee's House — 
How Christ Met His Crisis 250 

CHAPTER XXII 

THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 

Phoenicia, Summer, A. D. 29 

The Retirement of Jesus to the Region of Tyre and Sidon — The Gentile 
Woman's Faith — Jesus in Decapolis — The Healing of the Deaf and. 
Blind — The Feeding of the Four Thousand — The Craving for the 
Miraculous — The Programme of Jesus — Denunciation of the Phar- 
isees — The Christ Who Could Not Be Hid 257 

CHAPTER XXIII 
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 
Jerusalem, October 14-18, A. D. 29 
The Meddlesome Brothers of Jesus — Gossip at the Feast — Appearance of 
Jesus at the Temple — The Great Day of the Feast — The Answer of 
the Officers: "Never Man Spake Like This Man"— The Protest of 
Nicodemus — The Adulteress — The Bondage of Abraham's Seed — A 
Division Among the People 264 

CHAPTER XXIV 
THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 
Mt. Hermon, October, A. D. 29 
The Preparation for the Tragedy — The Question of Jesus — The Answer 
of Peter — Announcements of the Death cf Christ — Peter Rebuked — 
Bearing the Cross with Jesus — The Significance of the Transfigura- 
tion — A Sabbath Evening on the Mountain — Hermon, and not Tabor, 
the Probable Site — The Wonderful Shadow of Snow-Clad Hermon — 
The Glory Beheld by the Disciples — The Three Groups in Raphael's 
Picture 273 

CHAPTER XXV 
THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 
Capernaum, Autumn, A. D. 29 
The Only Miracle Wrought for the Personal Advantage of Jesus — His 
Waning Popularity — The Taxes of Jesus iii Arrears — Christ's Dis- 
regard of Formal Law — The Miracle that Produced a Heathen Coin — 
One Coin for the Lord and His Disciple 282 



1 



CONTENTS 



13 



CHAPTER XXVI 
JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 

Three Incidents in the Life of Jesus — The Dispute of the Disciples — The 
Freedom of the Child in the House of Christ — "Of Such Is the King- 
dom" — Offending One of These Little Ones — Moral Surgery — Children 
of God 2S8 

CHAPTER XXVII 

FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 

Capernaum, Autumn, A. D. 29 

Christ's Only References to the Church — The Ground of Forgiveness — 
Forgive and Forget — Moral Surgery Again — Hells, Present, Past and 
Future — The Gospel Not to Amputate, but to Save — The Worm and 
the Fire — The Utilization of the Waste 295 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 

Peraea, November, A. D. 29 

Special Features of Luke's Gospel — The Mission of the Seventy — The 
Inhospitable Samaritans — The Doom of Capernaum and the Cities 
Near the Lake — The Ten Lepers — Intimations of the Mission of Jesus 
to the Outer World , 301 

CHAPTER XXIX 

THE DEMOCRACY OF CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 

Peraea, November and December, A. D. 29 

The Growing Sternness of the Teaching of Christ — The Galilaeans Slain at 
the Feast — The Eighteen on Whom the Tower of Siloam Fell — Christ's 
Doctrine of Prayer 308 

CHAPTER XXX 

UNTIL HE FIND IT 

Peraea, Winter, A. D. 29-30 

Are There Few that Be Saved? — The Strait Gate — Counting the Cost — 
Three Precious Parables, the Lost Sheep, Coin and Son — The The- 
ology of Christ 317 

CHAPTER XXXI 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD 

Jerusalem, December 20-27, A. D. 29 

The Feast of Dedication — Solomon's Porch — The Demand of the Jews — 

The Use of Stones when Logic Fails — The Healing of the Man Born 

Blind — The Pool of Siloam — The Sabbath Question Again — Light and 

Darkness— The Good Shepherd— The Wide, Inclusive Fold 329 

CHAPTER XXXII 

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
Bethany, January, A. D. 30 
Beautiful Bethany— Primitive Industry— The Family of Lazarus— The Faith 
of Martha— The Tomb of Lazarus Now Shown— The Silent Testimony 
of Him Who Had Been Dead 338 



14 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
Persea, Winter, A. D. 29-30 
The Village of Ephraim — The Last Journey to Jerusalem — Various Ques- 
tions Asked of Jesus — Divorce — Blessing the Children — The Rich 
Young Ruler — An Ambitious Mother — The Chief Places in the King- 
dom 345 

CHAPTER XXXIV 

BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 
Jericho, March, A. D. 30 
Modern Jericho — The Visit of Jesus — The Blind Man by the Way — The 
Man in the Tree — Zacchseus, the Extortioner, and the Liberal Man. .352 

CHAPTER XXXV 

THE ALABASTER BOX 

Bethany, April 1, A. D. 30 

The Ascent from Jericho to Jerusalem — The Feast at Bethany — The Value 

of Mary's Gift — The Murmuring of the Disciples — The Appreciation 

of Jesus 357 

CHAPTER XXXVI 

AMID PALM BRANCHES 
Jerusalem, Sunday, April 2, A. D. 30 
The Prophecy of Zechariah — The Triumphal Entry — The New Attitude of 
Christ — The Golden Gate — The Procession Through the Centuries. .362 

CHAPTER XXXVII 

JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 
Jerusalem, Monday, April 3, A. D. 30 
The Early Walk to Jerusalem — The Barren Fig-Tree — The Power of 
Prayer — Forgiveness as a Condition of Prayer — The Cleansing of the 
Temple — The Praises of the Children 3J3 

CHAPTER XXXVIII 
JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 
Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30 
The Day of Debate — Christ's Authority Challenged — Insidious Questions, 
Political, Theological and Legal — Jesus Rejected by His Nation — The 
Widow's Mite — The Gentiles Who Desired to See Jesus — The Prophecy 
of the Destruction of the Temple — The Discourse on Olivet — The 
Talents, the Ten Virgins, and the Judgment Scene 378 

CHAPTER XXXIX 

JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 
Wednesday and Thursday, April 5 and 6, A. D. 30 
The Missing Day, Wednesday — Can We Supply It? — Preparation for the 
Passover — The Upper Room — A Recent Communion Service in Jerusa- 
lem — The New Commandment — The Lord's Supper — "Show Us the 
Father" — One Universe or Two? — The Gift of the Spirit — Interpreting 
Things as They Come 387 



CONTENTS 15 

CHAPTER XL 
JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 
Friday, April 7, A. D. 30 
The Garden of Gethsemane as It Is To-day — The Drowsy Disciples — The 
Seven Trials of Jesus — The Dilemma of Pilate — The Man of Sorrows — 
The Via Dolorosa — Simon the Cyrenian — Mutual Cross Bearing — The 
Crucifixion — The Seven Words from the Cross — "It Is Finished". . .402 

CHAPTER XLI 
EASTER 
Sunday, April 9, A. D. 30 
The Cross Not the End — Easter in Nature and in Religion — The Surprise 
of the Disciples — The Journey of the Women — Reason and Faith — 
The Empty Tomb — The Stone Rolled Away from Human Grief — The 
Resurrection of Christianity 416 

CHAPTER XLII 
THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 
April 9 to May 18, A., D. 30 
The Loneliness of the Disciples in Jerusalem — Their Return to Galilee — 
Their Life During the Forty Days — Jesus with the Disciples at the 
Sea — Loving Christ More than These — The Last Meeting of the 
Disciples in Jerusalem — The Ascension — The Triple Rainbow on 
Olivet — The Promise of His Presence 430 

PART II 
THE CFIRIST OF ART 

I. Art and Literature. 

Are Art and Literature Parallel in Their Development? — Mutual 
Limitations and Advantages — Wherein Art Has Special Liberty and 
Power — The Influence of Christ upon Architecture, Sculpture, Music, 
Poetry, and Painting — The Revelation of the Ideal of the Painters — 
This a Popular Ideal, Both a Record and a Contribution — The Popu- 
larization of Art — The Chromo; the Half-Tone Cut; Three-Color- 
Photography — Who Is the Christ Whom Art Reveals to Its Increased 
Constituency ? 445 

II. Early Christian Art. 

Discussions in the Early Church — Was Jesus Really Beautiful? — The 
Fathers Who Denied It — Have We Any Pictures Embodying Their 
Idea of Christ? — Purpose and Character of the Earliest Christian Art — 
The Fish and Its Alleged Significance — Christ as Orpheus; as the 
Personification of Youth; as Isaac or Jonah — The Lazarus Pictures — 
The Good Shepherd — The Lamb; Its Earlier and Later Significance — 
Decree of the Council of Constantinople — The Thorn-Crowned Christ, 
and the Christ of Judgment 456 

III. Have We a Likeness of Christ? 

The Tradition of Abgarus — The Portrait Painted by Luke — Luke and 
the Madonna — Do such Portraits Exist? — The Various Pictures with 
Apostolic Traditions Attached — Two Venerated Pictures — The Legend 
of Veronica — The Three or More Napkins which Bear Her Name — 
The Remarkable Drawing of Claude Mellan; the Strange Picture of 
Gabriel Max — The Investigations of Thomas Heaphy and of Sir Wyke 
Bayliss — Some of Their Copies Reproduced — Two Ancient Descrip- 
tions of Jesus; that of Nicephorus, and the Alleged Letter of 
Lentulus 465 



16 CONTENTS 

IV. Mary and Her Child. 

The Beauty of the Christian Madonna — Ancient and Modern 
Madonnas — The Hitherto Unpublished Correggio — The Beauty of the 
Childhood of Jesus in Art — The Mexican Madonna — A Series of Paint- 
ings by Murillo; the Type Disclosed — Representations of the Boy- 
hood of Jesus— A Noble Ideal 485 

V. The Carpenter Who Became the Christ. 

The Inadequacy of the Adult Christ, as Artists Paint Him — Two 
Pictures by Holman Hunt — Divinity by Subtraction — The Christ of 
Tissot — The General Type in Both Ancient and Modern Art — The 
Frontispiece 501 

VI. Past and Present. 

The Development and Decline of Painting — The Ages when Cathe- 
drals Were Building and Painting Made no Progress — The Renais- 
sance — Giotto and His School — Man and Nature — Durer, Holbein, and 
the Artists of the North — Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Dyck — Italian 
Artists; Verrocchio, Da Vinci and Luini; Fra Angelico, the Lippis, 
Botticelli, Titian and Raphael — The First Printing from Plates — The 
Priceless Little Prints by Finiguerra — Our Heritage from all Past 
Ages — The Productions of Modern Art — Two Different Kinds of 
Realism — The Realism of Earlier Art Compared 512 

VII. The Christ of To-Day. 

The Painters of Single Great Pictures, and Those of Series of Paint- 
ings — The Christ of the Modern Series — Dore, Bida, and Overbeck — 
The Christ of Hofmann — The Head that Has Supplanted that of Guido 
Reni in Popular Affection — Tissot's Memorable Work — The Cumula- 
tive Christ; the Christ of Every Normal and Justifiable Relation — The 
Illustrations of Linson — Fritz von Uhde, and His Democratic Christ — 
L'Hermitte, and His One Great Painting — Zimmermann, and His 
Christ of the People — The Dramatic Paintings of Jean Beraud — Frank 
Beard, His Cartoons — A Group of Recent Paintings — The Reverence 
of this Unconventional Art 526 

VIII. The Christ of To-Morrow. 

The Lack of Idealism in Modern Art — The Opportunity for the 
Modern Painter — The Inexhaustible Christ — Where Modern Art Has 
Done Its Best — The Good Shepherd — Paintings Not Failures, Though 
They Do Not Satisfy — The Value of the Second Commandment — A 
Meditation on a Modern Head of Christ — How Should We Feel 
Toward Such a Man as the Artists Show to Us? — The Christ of Art 
an Imperfect, but Helpful, Revelation — The Revelation of God in the 
Face of Christ 545 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Adoration of the Magi (J. A. 
Holzer) Frontispiece. 

Map of Palestine (Gen. Henry B. 

Carrington) 6 

The Good Shepherd (Frederick 

Shields) 24 

The Tomb of Rachel 26 

The Arrival at Bethlehem (Ol- 
iver L. Merson, 1846—) 27 

The City of Bethlehem 28 

Madonna of the Grand Duke 
(Raphael, 1482-1520) 29 

The Journey of the Magi (A. W. 
Van Deusen) 30 

The Star of Bethlehem (Schon- 
herr, 1824-) 31 

The Church of the Nativity at 

Christmas 32 

The Market Place in Bethlehem. 34 

Workers in Mother of Pearl — 
Bethlehem 35 

A Bethlehem Family 36 

A Pair of Bethlehem Maidens. . . 37 
The Vision of the Shepherds 

(Plockhorst, 1825—) 38 

Supposed Site of the Manger. . . 39 
The Arrival of the Shepherds 

^LeRolle) 41 

Holy Night (Correggio, 1494- 

1534) 43 

The Dream of Joseph (Murillo, 

1617-1682) 46 

The Immaculate Conception (Mu- 
rillo, 1617-1682).... 47 

Madonna and Child (W. A. Bou- 
gereau, 1825—) 48 

Madonna del Pozzo (Raphael, 

1482-1520) 49 

The Visit of the Shepherds (Mu- 
rillo, 1617-1682) 50 



PAGE 

The Madonna (Carlo Dolci, 1616- 

1686) 51 

Resting on the Way to Egypt 

(S. Benz, 1-34—) 52 

Coptic Church in Old Cairo 53 

The Repose in Egvpt (Van Dyck, 

1599-1641) 54 

The Repose in Egypt (Oliver L. 

Merson, 1846— ) 55 

A Group of Nazareth Maidens . . 57 

Church of the Carpenter Shop of 

St. Joseph 59 

Madonna (Gabriel Max, 1840- ) 60 

Nazareth the Beautiful 61 

The Betrothal of Joseph and 

Mary (Raphael, 1483-1520) . . 63 
Joseph and the Boy Jesus (Carl 

Muller, 1839-1893) 65 

Mount Carmel 66 

The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth 

(M. Albertinelli, 1474-1515) . 67 
The Fountain of the Virgin in 

Nazareth 69 

On the Way to Bethlehem (J. 

Portaels, 1818—) 70 

The Boy Jesus (Murillo, 1617-1682) 72 

Jerusalem from Mount Scopus . . 73 

The Valley of Jehoshaphat 74 

Modern Teachers of the Law, 

Jerusalem 75 

Jesus Among the Doctors (Hof- 

mann, 1824- ) 76 

On the Road to Jerusalem 77 

The Mosque of El Aksa on South 

End of the Temple Area 77 

The Boy Jesus (Winterstein) ... 78 
The Mosque of Omar on Temple 

Site 79 

Interior of Mosque of Omar 79 

A Caravan Resting 80 

The River Jordan 82 



17 



i8 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Russian Pilgrims at Jordan 83 

The Baptism of Jesus (Guido 
Reni, 1575-1642) 85 

The Baptism of Jesus (A. Ver- 
rocchio, 1435-1488) 87 

The Light of the World ( W. Hol- 
man Hunt, 1827- ) 89 

Where Elijah Hid from Jezebel . 91 

The Wilderness of Judaea 93 

The Temptation (Corwin Knapp 
Linson, 1900) 95 

The Mount of Temptation from 
the Jordan Valley 97 

The Mount of Temptation— near 
view 99 

The Temptation (Cornicelius, 

1825—) 100 

On Jordan's Banks 101 

Jesus, Peter and John the Bap- 
tist (Chr. Verlat) 102 

The Calling of Peter and An- 
drew (Baroccio, 1508-1573).. 103 

The Marriage at Cana (Paul 
Veronese, 1528-1588) 106 

The Spring at Cana of Galilee . . 107 

The Village of Cana 109 

Christ at the Door (Hofmann, 

1824-) 110 

Mount Zion 112 

Yemenite Jews in Jerusalem. ... 113 

The Damascus Gate, Jerusalem. 114 

The Citadel of Zion 115 

The Cleansing of the Temple 

(Rembrandt, 1606-1669) 116 

The Railway Station, Jerusalem 117 

A Teacher of Israel 118 

Jesus and Nicodemus (Unknown 
German Artist — old) 119 

Jesus at Jacob's Well (A. Car- 
racci, 1560-1609) 120 

Entrance to Jacob's Well 121 

Christ and the Woman of Samaria 
(Dore, 1832-1883) 123 

The Famous Samaritan Passage 
following the Ten Command- 
ments 124 

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman 

(Rembrandt, 1606-1669) 125 

Jacob's Well 126 

A Peasant Family of Palestine. . 129 



PAGE 

Eminent Men of Palestine 131 

Palestine Street Scene 133 

Christ Healing the Sick (Rem- 
brandt, 1606-1669) 137 

Christ Raising the Daughter of 
Jairus (Gustav Richter, 1823- 
1884.) 141 

A Group of Palestine Lepers 145 

Jesus and the Paralytic 147 

The Daughter of Jairus (Hof- 
mann, 1824 ) 151 

Ruins of the Synagogue at Tell 
Hum 153 

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan ! (Hof- 
mann, 1824—) 154 

"Wilt Thou Be Made Whole?" 

(C. Schonherr, 1827 — ) 156 

The Moving of the Waters (Jean 

Restout, 1696-1768) 157 

The Pool of Bethesda 160 

The Disciples Rubbing Out the 

Grain (Dore, 1832-1883) 161 

Jerusalem from the Wall 162 

The Beach of Bethsaida ('Ain et 

Tabigha) 164 

Map of the Sea of Galilee (Gen. 

Henry B. Carrington, U. S. 

Army) 165 

The Shore at Capernaum (Khan 
Minyeh) 166 

The Draught of Fishes (Crayer, 

1582-1669) 167 

Ancient Aqueduct above Khan 
Minyeh 169 

Tell Hum 171 

The Call of Matthew (Bida, 1813- 
1895) 172 

The Calling of Matthew (Che- 

mento of Empoli, 1554-1640) 173 

Fisherman Washing his Net 174 

Tiberias 175 

Fisherman on the Shore Near 
where the Disciples were 
Called 177 

Christ and the Fishermen (Zim- 
mermann, 1852 — ) 178 

Jesus Preaching from Peter's 

Boat (Hofmann, 1824 -).... 179 

Modern Galilsean Fishermen 180 

A City Set on a Hill 182 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



l 9 



PAGE 

Sermon on the Mount (Fritz von 

Uhde, 1846—) 183 

The Sea of Galilee from Tell Hum 186 

Garden of Franciscan Monks at 
Tell Hum 187 

Head of Christ (Da Vinci, 1452- 
1519) 189 

Young John the Baptist (Ra- 
phael, 1483-1520) 191 

'Ain Karim, Traditional Birth- 
place of John the Baptist . . 193 

John Rebuking Herod (G. Fat- 
tori, 1828—) 195 

Beheading of John the Baptist 
(C. S. Pearce, 1881 -) 199 

The Burial of Jesus (Lucio Mas- 
sari, 1569-1633) 203 

The Virgin Adoring the Child 
(Correggio, 1494-1534) 205 

The Madonna of the Carpenter 
Shop (Dagnan-Bouveret) . . . 206 

Madonna and Child (Albrecht 
Durer, 1507) 207 

Christ Taking Leave of his 
Mother (Durer, 1511) 208 

So-Called House of Lazarus, 
Bethany 209 

Magdala 210 

Jesus at Bethany (Hofmann, 
1824-) 211 

The Reading Magdalen (Correg- 
gio, 1494-1534) 212 

Jesus, Mary and Martha (Schon- 
herr, 1824-) 213 

The Feast at the House of Simon 
the Pharisee (Rubens, 1577- 
1640) 214 

The Women Friends of Jesus 
(Alex. Golz) 215 

Jesus among the Pharisees (Jean 
Beraud) 216 

The Women at the House of 
Simon the Pharisee (School 
of Giotto, 1276-1336) 217 

The Son of the Widow of Nain 
^H. Hofmann, 1824—) 219 

The Village of Nain 220 

Christ at the House of Lazarus 

( Siemiradsky, 1834- ) 221 

Threshing Floor in Palestine 223 

Jesus Teaching in the Synagogue 
(C. K. Linson) 225 



PAGE 

Jesus Stilling the Tempest (Dore, 

1833-1883) 227 

The Hand to the Plow : . . 229 

A Familiar Scene in Palestine . . . 231 

Egyptian Papyrus Containing 
' 'Sayings" of Jesus 233 

The Multiplication of the Loaves 
(Murillo, 1617-1682) 237 

Jesus the Christ (Munkacsy 
1846-) 239 

Christ the Compassionate 
(Raphael, 1483-1520) 243 

The Tower of Antonio, Jerusa- 
lem 249 

Christ and Peter (Schwartz) 253 

The Man of Sorrows (Jean Ber- 
aud) 256 

The Canaanitish Woman (Palma 

Vecchio, 1475-1528). . . .' 259 

The New Entrance to Jerusalem 265 

Tower of David and Hippicus, 
Jerusalem 266 

David Street, Jerusalem 267 

Inside the Jaffa Gate 269 

Christ and the Adulteress (Emile 
Signol) 270 

The Adulteress (Titian, 1477-1566) 271 
Mount Tabor from the Plain of 
Esdraelon 274 

Mount Hermon 275 

The Transfiguration (Raphael, 
1483-1520) 277 

The Coin in the Fish's Mouth 
(Spagnoletto, 1588-1656).... 284 

The Tribute Money (Titian, 1477- 

1576) 

A Modern Scribe 286 

The Sacred Shekel 287 

Christ and the Children (Hof- 
mann, 1824-) 291 

Christ Blessing Little Children 
(Rembrandt, 1607-1669) 293 

Suffer Little Children (Von Uhde, 

1846-) 294 

The Valley of Hinnom 299 

Gehenna and Aceldama 300 

A Samaritan Village 303 

Come Unto Me ( Thorwaldsen, 

1770-1844) 304 

The Inn of the Good Samaritan 305 



20 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Good Samaritan (Frank T. 
Merrill, 1900) 306 

Jesus Among Peasants (F. von 
Uhde, 1846-) 309 

Church of the Lord's Prayer. . . . 313 

Feed My Sheep (Raphael, 1483- 
1520) 319 

A Palestine Shepherd 321 

The Lost Sheep (Frank Beard) 323 

The Prodigal's Repentance 
(Durer, 1504) 325 

The Good Shepherd (Dobson) ... 327 

The Good Shepherd of the Four 
Seasons 328 

The Pool of Siloam 331 

The Siloam Inscription 

Leading Forth the Sheep 

The Shepherd of Jerusalem 335 

The Good Shepherd (Molitor) ... 337 

Modern Bethany 339 

A Modern Martha, of Bethany, 
Spinning 340 

The Raising of Lazarus (S. Del 
Piombo, 1485-1547) 341 

The Raising of Lazarus (Rubens, 
1577-1640) 342 

The Tomb of Lazarus 343 

Modern Jericho 353 

A Jericho Family 354 

Site of Ancient Jericho 355 

A Man of Distinction in Jericho. 356 
The Apostles' Fountain— on Jeri- 
cho Road 359 

Mary with the Alabaster Box 
(Carlo Dolci, 1616-1686) 360 

"The Poor Ye Have Always 
With You" 361 

The Road from Jericho to Jerusa- 
lem 363 

Jesus Lamenting Over Jerusa- 
lem (Eastlake) 365 

The Golden Gate of Jerusalem.. 367 
Golden Gate, Interior 369 

The Triumphal Entry ( Hof mann, 
1824-) 371 

Head of Christ (Vladimir Makou- 
sky) 372 

Street Leading to the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre 374 



PAGE 

The Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre 375 

The So-called Center of the 
World 376 

Jerusalem from the Mount of 
Olives 377 

The Holy Sepulchre 379 

Tribute to Cassar (Bida, 1813- 
1895) 381 

Inscription on Stone from the 
Temple 383 

The Man of Sorrows (Eduard 
Biedermann) 386 

Christ Washing Peter's Feet 
(Ford Maddox Brown, 1821- 
1893) 388 

Jesus Washing Peter's Feet 
(Boccaccino, 1515-1546) 389 

The Upper Room, Jerusalem . . . 393 

Judas Receiving the Money (H. 
Prell) 395 

Alleged Tombs of Absalom, 
Zechariah, and James, with 
Greek Gethsemane in the 
Distance 397 

Gethsemane and the Mount of 
Olives 399 

Old Olive Tree in Gethsemane . . 400 

On the Way to Gethsemane 
(C Schonherr, 1825—) 401 

Jesus in Gethsemane (Liska) . . . 403 

The Denial of Peter (Harrach) . 404 

Christ Before Pilate ( Hof mann, 
1824-) 405 

Christ Leaving the Praetorium 
(Dore, 1833-1883) 406 

The Sorrowful Way 407 

Crucifixion (W. A. Bouguereau, 
1825-) 409 

The Tombs of the Kings, Jeru- 
salem 411 

The Entombment (Perugino, 1446- 
1524) 412 

The Stone of Anointment 413 

The Tomb in the Garden at Cal- 
vary 414 

"There Is a Green Hill Far 
Away."- 415 

Easter Morning (Bouguereau, 
1825-) 417 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



21 



PAGE 

Mary at the Sepulchre (E. Burne- 
Jones) 418 

He Is Risen! (Tojetti, 1849-). . . 419 

Peter and John Running to the 
Sepulchre (Eugene Burnaud) 420 

The Walk to Emmaus (Hof- 
mann, 1824—) 421 

Kubebeh, the Emmaus of the 
Crusaders 423 

Christ at Emmaus (Paul Ver- 
onese, 1528-1588) 425 

"Lord, I Believe!" (C. Schon- 
herr, 1825-) 427 

Jesus at Emmaus (Rembrandt, 
1607-1669) 428 

"Peace Be Unto You!" (Kust- 
hardt) 429 

Service of American Pilgrims on 
Mount Calvary 431 

John and the Mother of Jesus 
(Dobson) 433 

The Church of the Ascension 435 

The Summit of the Mount of 
Olives from Bethphage 437 

The Ascension (Biermann) 439 

He is Risen ! (Ender, 1793-1854) 443 

Jesus of Nazareth 444 

The Annunciation (Murillo, 1617- 
1682) 446 

Madonna and Child (Murillo, 
1617-1682) 447 

The Flight into Egypt (Murillo, 
1617-1682) 448 

Resting on the Way to Egypt 
(Murillo, 1617-1682) 449 

The Holy Family (Murillo, 1617- 
1682) 450 

Joseph and the Infant Jesus 
(Murillo, 1617-1682) 451 

Joseph and the Child Jesus (Mu- 
rillo, 1617-1682) 452 

The Divine Shepherd (Murillo, 
1617-1682) 453 

The Holy Child (Murillo, 1617- 
1682) 454 

The Christ of Murillo (1617-1682) 455 

Christ Bringing Fruit of the Tree 
of Life 457 

Christ as Orpheus 457 

The Nativity, 343 A. D 458 



PAGE 

The Good Shepherd (from the 
Catacombs) 458 

The Good Shepherd, with Jonah 
as Prototype 458 

The Raising of Lazarus (from the 
Catacombs ) 459 

Primitive Forms of the Cross . . . 459 

The Baptism of Christ with Water 
from Heaven 460 

The Nativity, 4th Century 461 

Likeness of Christ attributed to 
St. Luke 466 

Luke Painting the Madonna 
(Rogier Van der Weyden, 
1399-1464) 467 

Luke's Alleged Portrait of the 
Virgin 468 

The Bambino in the Church in 
Ara Coeli, Rome 469 

The Napkin of Saint Veronica 
in Saint Peter's, Rome 470 

The Famous One-Line Portrait 
of Christ (Claude Mellan, 
1598-1688) 471 

Life Size Fresco from the Cata- 
comb of Saint Calisto 472 

The Napkin of Veronica (Ga- 
briel Max, 1846—) 473 

Byzantine Likeness of Christ. . . 474 

Mosaic from the Baptistry of 
Constantine 475 

Miniature Mosaic from the Cata- 
combs 476 

The Madonna of the Chair (Ra- 
phael, 1483-1520) 477 

The Queen of Heaven (Pap- 
peritz) , 478 

The Immaculate Conception 
(Murillo, 1617-1682) 479 

The Madonna of the Arbor (Dag- 
nan-Bouveret) 480 

Raphael Painting the Madonna 
of the Chair (J. W. Wittmer, 
1802-1880) 481 

The Visit of the Shepherds ( Al- 
brecht Durer, 1510 ) 482 

The Adoration of the Magi (Al- 
brecht Durer, 1511) 483 

The Coronation of the Madonna 
(Botticelli, 1447-1510) 484 

The Madonna ( Filippino Lippi, 

1460-1505 ) 485 



22 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Mater Dolorosa (Guido Reni, 
1575-1642; 486 

The Sistine Madonna (Raphael, 
1483-1520) 488 

The Virgin Adoring the Child 
(Fra Filippo Lippi, 1412-1469) 487 

The Nativity (W. A. Bouguer- 
eau, 1825—) 489 

The Madonna and Child (Cor- 
reggio, 1494-1534) 490 

Mexican Madonna 491 

Our Lady of Guadalupe 493 

The Star of Bethlehem (Piglheim) 494 

The Virgin and the Infant Jesus 
(Gherardo Delle Notti, 1590- 
1656) 495 

The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth 
(Titian, 1477-1576) 496 

The Annunciation (Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti, 1828-1882) 497 

The Flight into Egypt (Claude 
Lorraine, 1600-1682) 498 

The Repose in Egypt (Le Rolle) 499 
Jesus and the Children (Kirch- 
bach) 500 

The Carpenter Shop of Nazareth 
(Corwin Knapp Linson) 501 

The Shadow of Death (W. Hol- 
man Hunt, 1827—) 502 

The Resurrection of Lazarus 
(Bassano, 1510-1592) 503 

The Last Supper (Rubens, 1577- 
1640) 504 

The Crucifixion (Michael Angelo, 
1475-1564) 505 

The Dead Christ (Fra Bartolom- 
meo, 1469-1517) 506 

Jesus and Thomas (Van Dyck, 
1599-1641) 507 

Jesus Among the Doctors (Giot- 
to, 1276-1336) 508 

The Finding of Christ in the 
Temple (W. Holman Hunt, 
1827—) 509 

The Adoration of the Magi (Al- 
brecht Altdorfer, 1512) 510 

Pilate Washing his Hands (Hans 
Holbein, 1517) 511 

The Visit of the Magi to the 
Cave-Born Child (From the 
Codex Graecus, in Vatican, 
1613 A. D.) 512 



PAGE 

The Raising of Lazarus (Rem- 
Brandt, 1642) 513 

Christ before Caiaphas (Durer, 
1512) 514 

The Coronation of the Virgin 
(Finiguerra, 1452) . , 515 

The Adoration of the Magi (Fini- 
guerra, 1452) 516 

The Last Supper (Leonardo da 
Vinci, 1452-1519) 517 

The Last Supper (Fra Angelico, 
1387-1455) 518 

The Last Supper (Zimmermann, 
1852—) 519 

Christ at Emmaus (Fra Angeli- 
co, 1387-1455) 520 

Christ at Emmaus (Rembrandt, 
1634) 521 

Christ Healing a Child (Gabriel 
Max, 1840—) 522 

' ' Save, Lord, or I Perish ' ' 
(Frederic Shields) 524 

Christ and the Young Ruler 
(Hofmann, 1824-) 526 

The Man Christ Jesus (Hofmann, 
1824—) 527 

Ecce Homo (Guido Reni, 1575- 
1642) 528 

Christ Blessing Little Children 
(Hofmann, 1824—) 529 

"Come, Lord Jesus, and be Our 
Guest" (Fritz von Uhde, 
1846-) 530 

The Holy Family (Fritz von 
Uhde, 1846-) 531 

The Angel and the Shepherds 
(Fritz von Uhde, 1846 -) .... 532 

One of Fritz Von Uhde's Cher- 
ubs 533 

Study for the Head of Christ 
(Alfred Juergens, 1903) 534 

The Great Physician (Gabriel 
Max, 1840—) 535 

The Saviour of the World (F. 

Bucher) 536 

Christ with Peasants (L'Her- 
mitte) 537 

Jesus Among Pharisees (Jean 
Beraud) 538 

Christ Bearing the Cross (Jean 
Beraud) 539 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 



23 



The Descent from the Cross 
(Jean Beraud) 540 

The Scourging of Jesus (Jean 
Beraud) 541 

"If it be possible, let this cup 
pass from me" (Joseph- 
Aubert, 1898) 542 

"Why Have Ye Done This?" 
(Debat-Ponsan) 543 

"Behold I Stand at the Door 
and Knock" (Frank Beard, 
1902) 544 

The Last Communion (Joseph- 

Aubert, 1900) 545 

The Betrayal (Hebert) 546 

The Mission of the Apostles 
(Joseph- Aubert, 1899) 547 

Jesus Bearing the Cross (W. A. 

Bouguerau) 548 



The Crucifixion ( Joseph- Aubert, 
1903) 549 

The Return from Calvary (Joseph- 
Aubert, 1903) 550 

On the Way to Emmaus (Girar- 
det, 1903) 551 

The Head of Christ (Wolter- 
Sigora) 552 

Christ and the Adulteress (A. A. 
Anderson) 553 

The Widow's Mite (Hugo Mieth, 
1899) 554 

"Suffer Little Children to Come 
to Me .' ' (Ruederstein, 1893) . . 555 

"Behold, I Send You Forth" (J. 
R. Wehle, 1900) 556 

The Good Shepherd (Plockhorst, 
1825—) 557 

The Good Shepherd of the Cata- 
combs 558 




THE GOOD SHEPHERD — (FREDERIC SHIELDS) 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 

CHAPTER I 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 

The modern tourist visiting Bethlehem makes his way from 
Jerusalem over an excellent road, on horseback or in a com- 
fortable carriage, and may easily accomplish the half-dozen 
miles of his pilgrimage in an hour. More slowly, and often 
with weary feet, the caravans of antiquity toiled over this same 
highway. We are following, when we make this journey, at 
the end of a procession many centuries in length. Through 
these same fertile valleys, over this same thoroughfare, patri- 
archs and merchantmen of antiquity plodded their way from 
the populous centers of Assyria and Babylon to the markets 
of Egypt. Glad were they and their overladen beasts of the 
comparative level of this stretch of road after the toil and 
danger of the hill-country to the north, and glad were they 
returning of the fertility of the fields and the occasional shade 
by the way, after the heat and sand of the desert. The lime- 
stone of this thoroughfare has been ground to dust by feet 
that themselves returned to dust thousands of years ago. The 
foot of the modern tourist wakes echoes of footfalls that died 
out in silence ages ago. 

But among all who journeyed southward over this road in 
past centuries, one group rises from the silence and takes form 
in the imagination — an anxious man, leading a small Syrian 
donkey, on which rides a young and beautiful woman. They 
proceed slowly and with frequent halts; and many are the 
travelers that go past them on the way. A throng of people 
is making its way to Bethlehem, for the word of Caesar has 
commanded a census as the basis of a new tax levy, and the 
people go for enrolment to their ancestral homes. This law 

2$ 



26 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



has brought the young carpenter and his bride a weary jour- 
ney of a hundred miles from Nazareth, and at what seems a 
most inopportune time. 

We see this young couple before us all the way; we pass 
them again and again as we journey, for their pace is painfully 
slow, and it will be night ere they arrive in the home of their 
forefathers, and a cold welcome, alas, awaits them there. 

Before we reach Bethlehem we are reminded that the place 
had its own historic associations before the time of Christ. 
Close beside the roadway on the right is seen a conspicuous 




THE TOMB OF RACHEL 



sepulchre. Mary must have noticed it, and, if she had never 
seen it before, she can hardly have failed to ask Joseph what 
it was. We can imagine that Joseph told her with some reluc- 
tance, and that the information brought to Mary a momen- 
tary foreboding. This is the tomb of Rachel. Jacob and his 
family were in the midst of one of their journeys southward 
from Bethel when Rachel here gave birth to Benjamin, the 
son of her sorrow. 

"And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath 
(the same is Bethlehem). And Jacob set up a pillar upon her 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



27 



grave: the same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day" 
(Gen. 35: 19, 20). 

Mary knew the story well, but the place itself must have 
brought it all back to her and with new and ominous signifi- 
cance. We see her and Joseph making what haste they may 






w 



WiXB 



fflMm 



ililfciSS 







■,:■■■■.■■. ^. ■ . ■. 



ft^>H-..;- ^SP 



"'■.'.'..'.■ - . .:..■'...■■■.■■■■■■ 

"■'■■"./'■.."'..'.'■'■■"'.'.■'' ''.■.'....'". :■ '.■",',',,',",': 



THE ARRIVAL AT BETHLEHEM 
(OLIVER L. MERSON, 1846 — ) 

toward Bethlehem, while we tarry for a while at Rachel's 
grave — one of the oldest and best authenticated of the memo- 
rials of the patriarchs. 

Jacob's own pillar may not have remained long in place, but 
there was every motive for the renewal of a monument of 



28 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



such historic and pathetic interest. Situated as it was by the 
highroad, it soon became a recognized waymark. In Sam- 
uel's time the place of the grave was well known (I. Samuel 
10:2), and it is believed that knowledge of the spot has never 
disappeared from popular interest so as to have required the 
invention of a myth to identify it. The spot is held in sacred 
affection by Jew, Mohammedan and Christian. The tomb has 
often been restored and its external form changed. The pres- 
ent structure is entirely modern, and very similar to the other 
tombs of the more pretentious sort of which one finds num- 




THE CITY OF BETHLEHEM 

bers throughout Syria; but the grave itself is quite possibly 
undisturbed. Here, every Thursday, come scores of Moham- 
medan women for a day of mourning. The weeping of Rachel 
for her children finds loud and vehement echoes in the lamen- 
tations of these Moslem women for Rachel herself. Here, of all 
places in Palestine, a Moslem woman desires to be buried. 
Thousands of graves, not all of them graves of women, sur- 
round the tomb of the beloved wife of Jacob. 

Bethlehem is in plain sight, a mile ahead. Its situation 
instantly reminds one of that of Jerusalem. It is built upon 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



29 



a double hill with a low valley or saddle near the middle, and, 
while much smaller, it stands up from its surrounding valleys, 
square-built and solid, and appears almost as impressive and 
picturesque as the Holy City itself. The hill is of gray lime- 
stone and the slopes and surrounding valleys are green with 




MADONNA OF THE GRAND DUKE 
(RAPHAEL, I482- 1 520) 

fig-trees and olive-trees, and cultivated fields and pastures. 
Just before we come to the town the road makes a turn, while 
a path, keeping straight ahead, leads to a well which has been 
identified for six hundred years as the well of David. Here 
this comparatively modern tradition places the scene of the 
story in II. Sam. 23: 14-17: 



3Q JESUS OF NAZARETH 

"And David was then in the hold, and the garrison of the 
Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David longed and 
said, Oh that one would give me water to drink of the well 
of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! And the three mighty 
men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water 




THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGI — (A. W. VAN DEUSEN) 

out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, 
and brought it to David: but he would not drink thereof, but 
poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, 
O Lord, that I should do this: shall I drink the blood of the 
men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would 
not drink it. These things did the three mighty men." 



1 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



31 



It is little wonder that a nature so warm-hearted and gen- 
erous as that of David was capable of calling forth such enthu- 
siastic loyalty and devotion, and it also is not strange that a 
man of feelings so fine as those expressed in the pouring out of 
the water brought to him at such peril, should have impressed 
the men of his own generation as worthy to be king. It was 




THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM — (SCHONHERR, 1824 — ) 

the life of this man that made Bethlehem famous, and it bears 
his name, the City of David. 

But a story more beautiful than any recorded of David is 
that with which the Gospels open, the birth of Jesus the 
Saviour. Beautiful it is, but pathetic, also. The young car- 
penter arrived late in Bethlehem, and, in spite of the prover- 



32 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



bial hospitality of Palestine, was unable to obtain a lodging. 
The khan was full, and the cavern which served it as a stable 
— and the khan itself was little more than a stable — alone 
afforded them a shelter. 

We are not left to conjecture the general character of an 
inn or khan of the time of Christ. Such caravansaries still 
exist in Palestine. A typical building of this kind at Jenin is 
a stone structure about fifty feet long and twenty-five wide, 
divided in the middle by a wall five feet high; one side being 




THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY AT CHRISTMAS 



for horses and the other for the people. Around the wall of 
this latter room extends a bench of masonry five feet wide and 
two feet high, known as the leewan, on which people store 
their baggage and make their beds for the night. Each 
caravan, on its arrival, passes through this room and stops 
while the horses and donkeys are unloaded. The animals are 
then turned loose into the other apartment and fenced out by 
a single pole. Sleepers on the leewans around the walls are 
frequently disturbed by the arrival of other caravans, or by 
the stamping of horses already within the enclosure. There is 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 33 

no privacy; travelers arriving after the lee wans are full must 
make the best of the floor; and if this too is occupied the last 
resort is the other apartment with the horses. Some of these 
khans were doubtless larger than the one described, and some 
had stone mangers for the horses. Some, too, had more apart- 
ments or recessed leewans opening around a central court. 
The town of Bethlehem being upon an ancient highroad, 
would probably have possessed a khan larger than the average, 
and its stables and adjacent yards would have covered more 
space than the modern one at Jenin. Still, the general type 
has doubtless been altered little, and the caravansaries in 
Palestine today will illustrate, quite graphically, the rude sur- 
roundings of the birth of Jesus. 

It was no parsimony on the part of the young carpenter 
that brought him and his bride to this unpromising place. 
Vainly Joseph sought a lodging elsewhere, but the inner 
leewans were full, and the little town had no home that opened 
its door, at that time when the village was crowded, to Mary 
and her husband. So, in the stable of the village khan, Jesus 
was born. 

Can we be at all sure that we have found the place where 
Jesus was born? There are many things of interest in Pales- 
tine which we must read about with doubt or misgiving; but 
we are glad to be assured that the place where this occurred is 
known beyond serious doubt. The great church of Saint 
Mary, erected by Constantine early in the fourth century, was 
located upon a tradition that reached at least two hundred 
years farther back. The very church is still standing, though 
Jerusalem has been destroyed again and again; and the tradi- 
tion which the building perpetuates has come down to us like 
the church itself, from the earliest Christian centuries. But 
the inn and grotto, thus marked by the church, had been kept 
well in mind since the time of Justin Martyr, in whose day this 
was well accepted as the veritable spot of Christ's birth. The 
testimony of Justin Martyr, who lived less than a century after 
Christ, is the more convincing because he was born in Pales- 
tine, at Shechem, and knew the country, and was well able to 



34 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



pass upon the reasonableness of current traditions. This does 
not give us certainty, but a reasonable probability, which a 
visit to the place seems to confirm. The place answers all the 
necessities of the case, makes the story more real, and satis- 
fies at once one's reason and his sense of fitness. 

The church is occupied by Greeks, Latins and Armenians. 
These sects show none too much of the Christian spirit in 
their love of each other, but after a fashion they dwell together 




THE MARKET PLACE IN BETHLEHEM 



in unity. This is the oldest Christian church in Palestine, and 
probably the oldest in the world. It is cruciform in shape, and 
the choir, which occupies the top and arms of the cross, is 
separated from the nave by a partition. A double row of col- 
umns, on either side of the nave, are crowned with Corinthian 
capitals with a cross carved on each. The clearstory rises 
high above these columns. This part of the church, common 
to all the denominations who hold it, is bare and faded, and 
the separate quarters of the three sects have a shabby look; 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



35 



but the Greek cathedral, above the grotto, is handsomely dec- 
orated, and the Grotto of the Nativity is jealously guarded. 
Here are fifteen lamps, kept constantly burning; six of them 
by the Greeks, five of them by the Armenians, and four by 
the Latins. The exact place of the Saviour's birth, as the tra- 
dition holds it, is indicated by a star in the floor, with the 
words in Latin, "Here Christ was born of the Virgin Mary." 
Daily services are held here by the different sects, and the 
Christmas celebrations are particularly imposing. 




WORKERS IN MOTHER-OF-PEARL — BETHLEHEM 

In this cave dwelt Jerome, the greatest Biblical critic of the 
earliest Christian centuries. Here he learned the Hebrew 
language and made his translation of the Vulgate. The grotto 
where he is believed to have wrought is pointed out, as well as 
his tomb and the graves of the two women, mother and daugh- 
ter, who devoted themselves to him during his long continued 
effort. Jerome was subject to the most severe criticism for 
presuming to make a new translation of the Bible, and his 
righteous soul was vexed beyond the narrow limits of absolute 
saintliness by attacks made, not only upon his orthodoxy, but 



36 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



upon his moral character as well. But he had faith in the great 
work he had undertaken, and so also had some of his friends, 
and he persisted until his translation of the Bible was complete. 
He applied to his critics some names which were the reverse 
of gentle. He called them "fools," "stupids" and "biped 
asses." The critics were in the majority while he lived, but 
after his death the value of his work was recognized, and he 

















A BETHLEHEM FAMILY 



was declared a saint. The Latin church still uses his transla- 
tion, which, spite of its limitations, has proved one of the 
greatest blessings of the Christian church. 

The modern Bethlehem contains about five thousand inhab- 
itants, almost wholly Christian. It is an enterprising little city, 
and a marked contrast with Hebron, its Mohammedan neigh- 
bor. One is full of energy, progress and hope; the other is 
stagnant and void of ambition. One worships by the tombs 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



37 



of a great past; the other rejoices in a Christ whose life, new- 
born in every man and community that receives him, forever 
begins anew, and forever expects a glorious future. 

My own visit to Bethlehem was made in March, 1902, after 
a weary, but fascinating, horseback ride through Galilee and 
Samaria to Jerusalem, over rough and rocky roads. The car- 
riage drive to Bethlehem seemed very restful by comparison 




A PAIR OF BETHLEHEM MAIDENS 



and the journey both short and delightful. The streets of the 
little city were full of enterprising men selling articles made 
from mother-of-pearl, many of them of exquisite workman- 
ship, or of olive-wood and cedar. Women, too, were upon the 
streets in large numbers, in their picturesque attire and un- 
veiled faces. They are sturdy, wholesome looking women, and 
their costumes are more brilliant and striking in color than 



38 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



those of any other city in Palestine. The town lacks water, 
as Jerusalem does, and depends upon its cisterns dug in the 
limestone rock, twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the 
sea. But the surrounding country is fertile, and the people 
are well nourished and show evidence of intelligence and skill. 




THE VISION OF THE SHEPHERDS — (PLOCKHORST, 1825 — ) 

It is a city that evokes one's enthusiasm, and sends him back 
with joy in his heart. The song of the angels is still heard in 
the hearts of men, and one hears it with sweeter and deeper 
meanings when he has visited the spot where first it woke the 
wondering shepherds to thanksgiving and praise. 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



39 



The angels sang above the place, and well they might, for 
nowhere has been struck a chord that echoes so loud and clear 
in the songs of the centuries that followed. To the west of 
the village, one is shown the field where the angels sang. It is 
needless to say that no one knows in just what field the shep- 
herds were keeping their sheep. It is enough to know that 
this may have been the field. A similar field is assigned by 
tradition to Boaz and Ruth. It is pleasant to be reminded 




SUPPOSED SITE OF THE MANGER 



of this old-time love story in this home of David and the tem- 
porary abiding place of Joseph and Mary. 

It was appropriate that the Christ-child should have come 
with a burst of song. When the earth began, which was to 
be the scene of his redemption, "the morning stars sang 
together." For ages inspired poets sang in anticipation of his 
birth. The last thing that Jesus and his disciples did together 
was to sing a song before going out from the upper chamber 
where they celebrated the last supper. Wherever the Gospel 
has gone, it has been wafted on the wings of song. In com- 



4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

memoration of all the melody which had preceded it, and in 
anticipation of all the song that was to spring from it, what 
wonder that the angels sang when Jesus was born! 

"Glory to God in the highest!" Was not God already glori- 
fied there? All God's worlds are one in their interests and 
hopes. There is always an increment of joy and a new burst 
of praise in heaven over any good thing on earth. The birth- 
cry of the Babe in the manger was echoed by the gladdest 
shout of praise that ever reverberated through the vault of 
heaven. 

"Peace on earth, good will toward men!" In olden times, 
kings loaned their children as hostages to nations with which 
they had been at war. Jesus was the pledge of God's good 
will toward men. But he was also the example and exponent 
of men's good will toward one another. Strife and cruelty had 
marked the ascent of the race. History had run red, and the 
ages had echoed with sobs caused by man's inhumanity to man. 
Jesus came that good will might abound between man and 
man, and between man and his God. 

The Gospel of Luke opens with a rich quartette. Zacharias 
sings his Benedictus and Simeon his Nunc Dimittis, while the 
voices of Elizabeth and Mary rise, the one in her Beatitude 
and the other in her Magnificat. What a wonderful overture 
is this for the great drama of redemption! But above, in the 
starry heavens the angels sing their Gloria whose echoes make 
the centuries melodious. 

I heard a song in Bethlehem, and in the Grotto of the Nativ- 
ity. A service was in progress, conducted by the Armenians. 
It was a children's service. The little chapel was thronged 
with children, dark eyed, straight haired little fellows, chant- 
ing their quaint hymns of praise. It was music unlike that of 
the home-land, but it was music in praise of the Christ-child, 
and the voices of the children gave it sweetness and spon- 
taneity. I have tried vainly to recall the melody, the move- 
ment was unfamiliar, and the notes will not repeat themselves 
in my memory. But the scene comes up again in my recollec- 
tion, and with the picture a suggestion of sweet harmonies 
befitting the place and its memories. 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



41 



Another group beside the shepherds came to the cradle of 
Jesus. These were the Magi from the East. "Where is he that 
is born King of the Jews?" they asked. They had followed 
"his star." How did they know it to be "his star"? Men 
studied the heavens in those days. Astrology was a curious 
art, and to us is a vain and obsolete one, but these men saw 




THE ARRIVAL OF THE SHEPHERDS — (LE ROLLE) 



signs in the heavens, and who shall say that God did not speak 
to them through such signs as they understood? 

Xepler computed the position of the planets, and found that 
for some months before the birth of Christ they had been such 
as to awaken the attention of throughtful observers. The Jews 
regarded the sign Pisces as of especial significance to them. In 
the year 747 of Rome, Jupiter and Saturn were three times 
in conjunction — on May 29, October 1 and December 5 — and 
all in that sign. The next spring the same stars were in con- 



4 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

junction, and Mars with them. These signs may have set the 
Magi to investigating, but we shall probably search in vain in 
the record of conjunctions for the star they followed. Herod 
died in 750 A. U. C. The birth of Christ was earlier than this, 
and after the conjunctions above referred to, probably in 749, 
or at the end of B. C. 5. Some vision in the heavens the Magi 
saw, and they obeyed it, and came seeking "the King of the 
Jews." 

The Jews had almost ceased to expect a king. When the 
last degenerate representative of the Davidic line looked for 
the last time on earth on the emblems of his power, as the 
smoke of the fire that was consuming the temple rose skyward, 
and then, bound and blinded and broken-hearted, took up his 
weary march with lamenting captives to the land of Babylon, 
there settled down over the Jewish people a cloud of melan- 
choly that deepened into despair. The long procession of fet- 
tered and footsore captives, looking back at the burning city 
of Jerusalem, recalling all the horrors of the siege and the 
sacking of the city, remembering with the keenest anguish 
the loss of friends and the valiant men fallen among the slain 
of battle, and anticipating the sufferings that were before them 
in a heathen land, suffered awhile in silence and then broke 
forth in the saddest of the Psalms. Looking back through 
the smoke and blinding tears and seeing their beloved city 
dishonored, their own homes destroyed, their very temple 
burning, while their enemies exulted over them and their 
heathen neighbors urged on the work of demolition and 
taunted them and blasphemed the name of their God, the Jews 
suffered an anguish of despair such as never a nation had 
known. We hear the clanking of their chains mingling with 
their lamentations all along their weary way. We hear the 
despair that uttered itself in every prayer or complaint. They 
had been a happy people, a music loving people, a trustful, 
festive people. But they were filled with unutterable sorrows 
now. They hung their harps on the willows, and their hearts 
sank. 

But deliverance came, and a company returned to their own 



THE SONG AND THE STAR 



43 



land, rebuilt the temple and restored the worship of Jehovah. 
We have their songs of almost hysterical joy when they 
returned.* 

But they had no king. They were tributary in turn to Baby- 
lon, to Persia, to Greece, to Egypt, to Syria, and now to Rome. 




HOLY NIGHT — (CORREGGIO, I494-I534) 

All the while their hearts burned for independence. They felt 
that God was dishonored in their subjection. The hand of the 
tax-gatherer was heavy upon them, and the reproach of the 
Gentile conquerors was hard to bear. Where was their king? 
One of their prophets, Micah, had designated Bethlehem as a 



♦Chapters on The Psalms of the Exile, and the Restoration, in my 
'The Psalms and their Story." 



44 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

place of coming honor, and some of the interpreters of the Law 
believed themselves to have calculated the time, and that it 
was near, when God was to visit his people. Strangely enough 
there was widespread conviction in neighboring and more 
remote nations that the Jews were right in this, and that some 
great event was about to happen to them. Just about this 
time came the Magi, worshippers of one God, but seeking a 
nobler faith than they had known, and an earthly prince who 
should fulfil their heavenly hopes. And they came to the 
place where the young child lay. 

Thus two very different groups of men came to the cradle 
of the Christ. One company heard the song, and the other 
followed the star. One represented the humble laborers, and 
the other the learned scholars, of the time. One group was 
from the Jewish nation, and the other from the Gentile world. 
One group by the swaddling clothes recognized the child as 
of their own nation; the other by the star knew him to belong 
to the world. He was born King of the Jews; but he has 
become the Prince of peace to all the earth. 

We do not know that Jesus ever returned to Bethlehem. 
The associations of his later years were with other cities, 
many of them remote from the village of his birth; but around 
the place where he was born the most sacred memories cluster. 
To the Christian tourist from any country in the world it is 
among the most sacred of all places to be visited; and to the 
student and disciple of Jesus the story of the city of his birth 
teems with perennial interest. 



CHAPTER II 



THE HOLY CHILD 

The Bible is unique amid contemporary literature in the 
space it gives to childhood. Homer, for instance, has almost 
nothing of childhood. There is but one child in the Iliad, 
and there is none in the Odyssey. Virgil sings of "arms and 
the man," but the sweetest songs of the Bible are sung above 
a cradle. The motto, "Children should be seen and not heard," 
was carried to extremes in the old days; children were nowhere 
seen in the writings of most of the early nations. But the 
Bible abounds in stories of beautiful childhood, in which 
motherhood attains new glory, and manhood new dignity. 

Mr. Wu Ting Fang, who ably represented China at Wash- 
ington and charmed America with his versatility, contrasted 
Christianity and Confucianism by saying that Confucius 
taught men to respect age, while Christianity inculcates rev- 
erence for childhood. Doubtless we respect age too little and 
permit childhood too much of prominence and self-advertis- 
ing. But it may be said without unkindness that too great 
respect for the past is the trouble in China, while the charac- 
teristic of American life is its faith in childhood as a pledge 
of the future. "A little child shall lead," and does lead in civili- 
zation. The world discovered the beauty and hope of child- 
hood in the face of the Babe of Bethlehem. 

Joseph and Mary tarried at Bethlehem forty days, and then, 
perhaps in February, B. C. 4, presented him in the temple. 
There were two ceremonies to be observed in this case. The 
first was the purification of Mary according to the rite pre- 
scribed in Leviticus 12. For this, two offerings were required: 
a lamb as a burnt offering, and a dove as a sin offering. But, 
if a family was poor, the lamb, which cost about five days' 
labor, might be dispensed with and another dove substituted. 

45 



46 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



Joseph and Mary were no paupers, but they were in humble 
circumstances, and they brought two doves which cost from 
two to eight cents each. So Jesus first appeared publicly 
among men as a representative of God's poor. The other 
ceremony was the redemption of the child from temple service 
by the payment of five shekels, according to the law in Num- 
bers 18: 15, 1 6. This tax was due because Jesus was an eldest 




THE DREAM OF JOSEPH — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 

son. While there in the temple, an aged saint, Simeon, who 
had been waiting in hope for the blessing of his nation, took 
the child in his arms, and broke forth in the song: 

Now lettest thou thy servant depart, O Lord, 

According to thy word, in peace; 

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation 

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; 

A light for revelation to the Gentiles, 

And the glory of thy people Israel. 

— (Luke 2: 29-32.) 



THE HOLY CHILD 



47 



An aged prophetess also, Anna by name, came up, and 
"gave thanks unto God, and spake of him to all them that 
were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem." 

Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem in wonder. Oth- 
ers beside themselves and the shepherds — the visit of the Magi 
probably occurred a little later — recognized this wonderful 




THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 

child. What questions and anticipations and conjectures must 
have occupied them as they returned from the temple! 

However much or little Joseph and Mary understood of the 
nature of Jesus, the things which the gospel teaches concern- 
ing him are made reasonably plain to us. That which was 
divine in Christ was born of the Holy Ghost, and by that 



4 8 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



power the worlds were made. But that which was human in 
Jesus, his blood, his brain, his forms of thought, his mode of 
speech, his language, his race instincts and customs and hab- 
its of life, came to him normally as a child and man, subject to 
the normal influences of heredity and youthful training. He 
probably resembled Mary, not merely in features but in tem- 
perament, as much as any other normal child resembles his 
mother. He doubtless resembled his countrymen as much as 
the ordinary Jew, so that a Samaritan woman instantly recog- 




MADONNA AND CHILD 
(W. A. BOUGEREAU, 1825 — ) 

nized him as a Jew. But he was more than the son of Mary 
or the son of Abraham. He was the son of the race, its high- 
est representative, and the Son of God the Father. 

The genealogies of Christ as given by Matthew and by 
Luke present many, and at present insuperable, difficulties. 
We are not sure that we know the reason for their tracing 
the descent of Jesus through Joseph; we are not sure that we 
are able to harmonize their data with that given in other parts 
of the Scriptures; we are not sure that we are able to account 
for their differences one from the other. There are one or two 



THE HOLY CHILD 



49 



things, however, of which we are practically certain, one of 
which is that the public registers of the time of Christ made 
him legally the descendant of David, and thus to the Jews a 
possible fulfiller of the promises concerning the Messiah. 
Another thing that is significant in the genealogy of Luke, is 
that the evangelist who dwells most at length on the prenatal 




MADONNA DEL POZZO — (RAPHAEL, I482-I52O) 



announcements of Christ's divine advent, who gives the songs 
of the angels and the story of the wonderful birth, traces his 
divine descent, and his consequent right to become the Saviour 
of the world, through Adam. 

Humanity did not lose its capacity for divinity by the 
Adamic fall. Down the long line of patriarchs and kings and 



50 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



prophets and judges, and men good and bad, from generation 
to generation runs the royal line, and at each end of it 
is God. Christ was divine because he was born of the Holy 
Ghost. It was possible for him thus to be divine because 
he was born of the seed of Adam. He was the Son of God 
because the Holy Spirit descended upon Mary his mother. 
He possessed capacity for divineness because the divine image 
had not yet disappeared from the sons of Adam. He was 
divine because he was the Son of God; he was divine notwith- 
standing the fact, and perhaps we might say, if we knew more, 




THE VISIT OF THE SHEPHERDS — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 

because of the fact, that he was the grandson of Heli, who was 
the son of Adam who was the son of God. We assent rather 
grudgingly to the humanity of Jesus, hedging lest we imply 
some lack of faith in his divinity, but Jesus rejoiced to be 
known as the Son of man. As the Son of man he claimed 
lordship over the Sabbath; as the Son of man he claimed the 
power to forgive sins; as the Son of man he promised to ascend 
to the right hand of the Father. In him humanity is trans- 
figured. Because Jesus was the Son of God he had power to 
impart new life; because he was the Son of Adam he became 
the Saviour of men. 



THE HOLY CHILD 



51 



This royal child, coming to his own nation, found the throne 
of David in ruins, and upon those ruins stood the government 
of the Herods, with which he soon had a perilous encounter. 
The house of Herod was founded by Antipater, an Idumaean 
governor, who by the growing fortunes of Rome found his 
dominion increased till he became, under Rome, the head of 
a new local dynasty. He was murdered by poisoning, and 
followed by his son Herod the Great, who extended his father's 




THE MADONNA — (CARLO DCLCI, l6l6-l686) 



dominion beyond the Jordan, and by the grace of his power 
from Rome became known as "Herod the king of the Jews." 
Herod himself was no Jew, "but more than half a heathen 
alike in his state indifferentism and his cosmopolitan vices," 
but he married a beautiful Asmonaean princess by name 
Mariamne, heiress of the house of the Maccabees. So, from 
the position of a frontier governor he rose to something like 
regal dignity, and every step of his ascent to the throne was 
stained with blood. Once recognized as king, he endeavored 



52 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



to make himself secure from all rivals, chiefly from those of 
the Maccabaean family, and mercilessly murdered not only his 
wife's relatives, but his wife and his own two sons. He had a 
long series of conflicts and tumults with zealots representing 
the old Maccabaean pretensions, but one by one he put them 
to death, and for many years reigned in freedom from 
aspirants to the throne. Then, when all the Maccabaean rivals 
or possible rivals were dead, and Herod's own end drew near, 
a singular thing occurred. 




RESTING ON THE WAY TO EGYPT — (s. BENZ, 1834) 

From a foreign land came wise men seeking the new-born 
King of the Jews. He was no descendant of the Maccabees, 
but of David. Herod had never concerned himself with 
David's right to the throne. The statute of limitations seemed 
to have set all that at rest. Not for four hundred years had 
any one concerned himself with the question of the right to 
rule because of descent from David. Herod met the issue 
with characteristic vigor and cruelty. He put to death all the 
male children in and about Bethlehem from two vears old and 



THE HOLY CHILD 



53 



under. He had put many people to death by strangulation, 
burning, cleaving asunder and secret assassination, and every 
gross and brutal element in his character had found free rein 
during his life. But this was his last massacre. On the first 
of April, in the year 4 B. C, he died. Fearful that none would 
mourn over his departure, as he was dying at Jericho, he 




COPTIC CHURCH IN OLD CAIRO 



caused a number of the chief men of the Jews to be assembled 
there that they might be put to death when he died, that their 
relatives and friends at least might mourn. So far as is 
recorded none others wept when Herod died; and happily the 
mourning for these men was turned to joy, for they were 
released by Salome after the death of Herod. 



54 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The bloodthirsty plot against the infant Jesus did not suc- 
ceed. Joseph and Mary had taken the child and fled with 
him to Egypt. The reign of the Ptolemies had been favorable 
to the immigration of the Jews, of whom many thousands at 
this time were in Egypt. They comprised nearly half of the 
city of Alexandria, and had many colonies on the land of the 
Nile. Somewhere among these people of their own land 
Joseph and Mary could find friends. 




THE REPOSE IN EGYPT — (VAN DYCK, I599-1641) 

Tt was three hundred miles from Bethlehem to Egypt, but 
the Roman roads were good, and Egypt was the best of all 
places of refuge for Joseph and Mary. It took them directly 
away from their own home and from Jerusalem, and brought 
them out of Herod's jurisdiction to a land where their country- 
men were free citizens and they could dwell securely. 

There is a little Coptic church in Cairo, very old and quaint, 
beneath whose altar is a grotto declared by tradition to have 
been that where Mary and her child reposed. We do not need 
to trust the tradition, which is far more likely to be false than 



THE HOLY CHILD 



55 



true, but it is interesting to know that for a good many centu- 
ries a spot has been marked near the apex of the Delta as 
that where Joseph and Mary made their temporary home. 

A modern French artist has made a painting called "The 
Repose in Egypt," which, while open to some criticism, is still 
strikingly impressive. It shows the Sphinx standing on the 
edge of the desert looking out over the solemn waste, patiently 
expectant and serene. The night is dark above and only the 
stars give light, which represents tradition and philosophy 
shedding their faint gleam upon the silent world below. But 




THE REPOSE IN EGYPT — (OLIVER L. MERSON, 1846 — ) 

between the great paws of the Sphinx and near to its heart, 
rest Mary and her child, and a faint but prophetic light 
streams from the little one. At the base of the Sphinx lies 
Joseph sleeping, but guarding his wife and her baby, and close 
at hand the patient ass grazes on the little vegetation he can 
find for the morrow's journey. Meantime the stars shine on, 
and the light that streams from the child has new hope for 
men; for "There was the true light, even the light which 
lighteth every man, coming into the world. " 



CHAPTER III 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 

The world's best things have come out of its Nazareths. As 
an armv needs continual reinforcement from its own rear, so 
the life of the cities is constantly rejuvenated by the fresh blood 
of the villages and farms. Civilization marks its progress by 
the life of its cities, but the city depends upon the village and 
the country, not merely for its sustenance, but for its life. 
After Bethlehem, no village in Palestine so teems with interest 
as Nazareth. Yet Nazareth was not a noted village, even in 
its best days. The caravans from Damascus to the Mediter- 
ranean passed near it, and never suspected its existence. The 
long, laden lines of camels journeying northward from Egypt 
and southward from Babylonia, passed close by it, but rarely 
heard or thought of it. But if the caravans knew little of 
Nazareth, the village knew much about the caravans, and its 
own life was kept in touch with that of the outer world by 
the intelligence which it received and the commerce which it 
established by the passing flow of life and traffic. A little 
island in the midst of the sea of contemporary life, it was 
washed on every side by these tides of commercial and political 
activity that rose and fell unconscious of its presence. 

We do not read of Nazareth in the Old Testament. If it 
existed in those days, the fact is concealed from our knowledge. 
Indeed, it would have remained unknown through New Testa- 
ment times as well, but for the life of one family within it. 
The question of Nathanael, "Can any good thing come out of 
Nazareth?" (John i: 46) is an instructive commentary on the 
obscurity of the village, and has wrongly been used to sug- 
gest that Nazareth was also in some way disreputable. 
Matthew in telling us that Jesus made- his boyhood residence 
there, sought to find in prophecy some prediction of the fact 

56 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 57 

and place, and quoted, "He should be called a Nazarene" (Matt. 
2: 23). We do not know of any such prediction, however; the 
nearest we can come to finding such a word is in Judges 13: 5, 
where it is said of Samson, "The child shall be a Nazirite." 
But Samson was not Jesus, and a Nazarene is not, of necessity, 




A GROUP OF NAZARETH MAIDENS 



The words have their entirely separate signifi- 



We are tolerably familiar with the exegesis of New 



a Nazirite 
cance 

Testament times, and need not be at all surprised to discover 
only a verbal resemblance as the probable basis of this sup- 
posed fulfilment of prophecy. The name Nazareth is thought 
to have been derived from the word "white," and to refer to 
the color of the limestone cliffs about it. It is sometimes 



58 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

believed to have been derived from the word "watch-tower" ; 
and this, also, would have been a most appropriate derivation, 
for Nazareth was indeed a watch-tower, looking out upon the 
passing procession of the ages. But the early fathers delighted 
in the belief that the name means "flower," and this, too, 
would be an appropriate derivation, for the country about it is 
golden with chrysanthemums, and scarlet with madder and 
poppy and anemone. Whatever the meaning of the name, it 
has no connection with the sect of the Nazirites, and Jesus 
was not a Nazirite. The watch-tower village of Galilee, 
sheltered by its hills of white and enshrined in its floral fields — 
such was the Nazareth of our Lord's day. The modern Naza- 
reth, too, is a beautiful and attractive village. 

The company with which I visited Palestine came to 
Nazareth by carriage from the seacoast. A good road, 
repaired for the German emperor, and unlikely to be repaired 
again until some other king visits Palestine, leads from Haifa 
to the city of our Lord's boyhood. Skirting the edge of Mount 
Carmel, it follows the grade of the projected railroad from 
the Mediterranean to Damascus, which road the sultan had 
interdicted lest it should defeat his own hope of a railroad to 
Mecca, and only recently is said tO' have consented to its com- 
pletion. Crossing the Kishon, where Elijah slew the prophets 
of Baal, and tarrying for lunch at Harosheth of the Gentiles, 
where Jael slew Sisera with a tent-pin, a deed which Deborah 
immortalized in song (Judges 5: 24-31), we emerged into the 
fertile plain of Esdraelon. Gradually we left Carmel behind us, 
a long, low-lying ridge with its leonine headland jutting out 
into the sea. Ahead, and to the right, rose the rounded 
summit of Mount Tabor, the traditional, but improbable, scene 
of the Transfiguration. Mount Gilboa, where Saul and 
Jonathan met defeat and death, stood between us and the 
Jordan valley. To the north and east rose range after range 
of hills, with Mount Hermon, snow-crowned and brilliant, 
above them all. The valley, now green' with wheat, had been 
red with many a battle. The hills about were eloquent with 
memories of Israel's history. Scene after scene from the Old 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 59 

Testament and the New took shape in our imagination, as one 
spot after another was identified. It seemed as though the 
half of Bible history must have been associated with the places 
in range of our vision. With all this brought vividly before 
the mind's eye, we rose among the hills, and suddenly, in a basin 
of the surrounding mountains, Nazareth burst upon our view. 
We might easily have gone by it without knowing it was 
there, but we could not have gone by without being discov- 
ered, if any one in Nazareth had cared to discover us. 




CHURCH OF THE CARPENTER SHOP OF JOSEPH 



This single fact of its situation brought to the mind at once 
the advantage of Nazareth as a place for the boyhood of Jesus. 
A town unspoiled by the outer world, yet aware of all its char- 
acteristic movements; situated in the midst of historic scenes 
and fertile fields; inspired by memories of the past and impelled 
by the life of its own generation, such is Nazareth. 

Nazareth is now a town of about ten thousand inhabitants, 
predominantly Christian. The people are energetic and 
vivacious. The women are unveiled, and dress in picturesque 



6o 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



costumes, which, by comparison with those of the Moslem 
villages, may be called brilliant. The women commonly wear 
a simple blue frock, loosely gathered with a sash at the waist, 
and a kerchief tied over the head. They are fond of orna- 
ments, and generally wear necklaces. One does not so often 
see here the strings of coins that so characterize the women 
of Bethlehem. In their holiday costumes, the women affect 
more bright and contrasting colors. While not particularly 
handsome of face, they exhibit regularity of feature and an 
erect and graceful carriage. 




MADONNA — (GABRIEL MAX, 184O — ) 

Nazareth has but one spring, known as the Fountain of 
the Virgin. On the way to this well the women may be seen 
passing and repassing, all day long, the empty water-pots 
lying flat upon their heads, and the full ones tilted at a graceful 
angle. Seldom does a girl raise her hand to steady a water-pot, 
whether full or empty, and she seems to be even less conscious 
of it when walking than standing still. This spring is the one 
incontestably genuine place in the village, for the town has 
more than once been destroyed, and its present location, as 
the tombs and ruins attest, is a little farther down the hill 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 6l 

than in former centuries. The spring- must always have been 
the center of social life, and with a very little conjuring of the 
imagination one mav discern in these Nazareth maidens a 
more than fanciful resemblance to Mary the maiden of 
Nazareth. To this same spring and along these same narrow 
highways, fenced in by walls of this same limestone, she made 
her daily pilgrimage to the spring and back, carrying her 
water-pot. 

Voluble guides stand in readiness to show one many things 
in Nazareth associated with the boyhood life of Christ. The 
Church of the Annunciation undertakes to point out the 











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NAZARETH THE BEAUTIFUL 



precise spot where Mary stood when the angel came to her, 
and there is an underground series of chambers showing the 
Virgin's kitchen and the chamber of Joseph, and much more 
that is of interest to the credulous, but which spoils the story 
more or less for those who merely desire to make real in their 
thought the simple events of the gospel narrative, by visiting 
the scenes where they occurred. A church covers the alleged 
foundation of the carpenter shop of Joseph, and he who is 
interested may find there an ancient foundation surmounted 
by a modern church edifice, wherein abide reverence, credulity 
and cupidity, in a proportion which I will not undertake to 



62 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

determine. But a better thing may be found in the genuine 
carpenter shops of Nazareth, wherein, with crude tools, men 
labor as they labored in Joseph's day, in the making of the 
simple farming implements, whose manufacture and repair 
form the principal labor of the carpenter. There are few things 
in modern Nazareth more inspiring than these carpenter shops 
where one may reconstruct in imagination the boyhood and 
youth of Jesus, under the wholesome discipline of Joseph. 

Joseph was a carpenter, but that does not mean that he 
was a man to be despised. The Scripture references to him 
are not numerous, but they show him to have been a knightly, 
princely gentleman, without fear and without reproach. He 
was a man of resolution, and of resources. He could plan a 
long journey; could provide for earning his living in a strange 
land; he was willing to leave his labor and make all necessary 
sacrifice to promote the well-being of the young child. With 
the unerring instinct of a true gentleman, Joseph stood by a 
pure, sweet woman in distress, and covered what would have 
been considered her shame, but was her glory, with the ample 
mantle of his own honest name. Through him her honor 
remained unsullied. 

This carpenter, whom you see at the bench with his sleeves 
rolled up, pushing his plane, is a very Saul among men. Nay, 
look again, and the bench is a throne. The blood of the 
Davidic kings which flows in his veins has become purified by 
generations of honest labor. This man, Joseph, is a man of 
regal dignity. 

Joseph was Jesus' tutor. He taught him his trade. He 
borrowed books for him from the synagogue. He helped him 
into manhood, and sought him with much solicitude, when he 
tarried at the temple. For years he cared for Jesus; protecting 
him, teaching him, establishing him in business, doing a 
father's duty by him. Never once does the record give evi- 
dence of his failing in any task, difficult as was his position. 
He needs no halo to add to the simple dignity of his man- 
hood — Joseph the honest, courteous, knightly man, the car- 
penter of Nazareth. 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 63 

We may be too ready to assume that to be the husband of 
a madonna is to enjoy heaven on earth. At first sight it seems 
unaccountable that the husbands of the best wives in the world 
do not always secure unalloyed satisfaction out of the relation. 
It affords a man but moderate gratification to have his wife 
uncomfortably better or wiser than himself. I am not sure 




BETROTHAL OF JOSEPH AND MARY 
(RAPHAEL, I :\ 83- 1 520) 

that Joseph's position was always one of pleasure. To have 
to give up one's business and hasten into Egypt, and there 
remain perhaps for a period of years; to come back to 
Nazareth and start over again, and establish a new trade in the 
face of competition, may not have been wholly to his liking. 
He did not understand all that Mary was pondering in her 



64 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

heart; but he understood his simple duty, and to the end he 
performed it. 

It was Joseph who taught the youthful Christ his trade, and 
showed him how to saw to the line and plane to an even sur- 
face. It was he who sent the lad to the village school in the 
synagogue, and sometimes in the evening taught him further 
in the lore of his nation, fulfilling the commands of Moses 
for fathers to teach their children. The childish fingers of 
Jesus followed Joseph's thick and calloused hand and traced 
from right to left the lines of the great square Hebrew letters 
on the parchment rolls which he borrowed from the synagogue, 
or bought from his earnings, that Joseph himself might better 
know the law, whose rudiments he must teach to Jesus. It was 
Joseph who was known as his father, and who did a father's 
duties for him for thirty years, till he was a master carpenter, 
and had become of age, and was ready to enter life. Aye, there 
was the sorrow and the mystery and the hope, for it was not 
as a carpenter that he went forth. Joseph had trained him for 
something that took him forever from the bench, and made 
him, Joseph knew not what. 

It is written that when the visitors came and found the 
Christ-child, "they worshiped him" — not Mary. Doubtless, 
she was well content to have it so. A mother's constant 
surprise is that she can possibly be the mother of so wonderful 
a child. When people bow down before the baby and forget 
her, they do only what she herself has done and is doing. But 
once in a long time there enters her heart a little feeling of 
wonder why it is so, and of craving for some of the affection 
which is so lavished upon the little one, and she deserves it. 

Mary of Nazareth was sincere, calm, devoted, affectionate and 
pure.* And her woman's heart was all a-flutter with her first 
love that lifted her out of her girlhood and made her a woman; 
and that heart was deep and true and pure enough to enable 
the angel of God to whisper in her ear the most glorious and 
solemn secret which is ever told on earth, and that never to 
a man. 



*I quote, with some slight changes, in this chapter, from my little book 
"The Home of a Madonna." 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 65 

"Blessed art thou among women." The angel said so, and 
Mary believed him. But a sword pierced her own heart ere 
her blessing realized itself. It. was not wholly because her 
experience was unique; it was largely so in its universal char- 
acter. All mothers know something of her alternating high 




joseph and the boy jesus 
(carl muller, i 839- i 893) 

hope and her sinking of heart. She was a village maiden 
yesterday, and life was sweet and full of hope; a larger hope 
has come to her than that she dreamed of, and because of it, 
but her girlhood has gone, and a new and measureless respon- 
sibility was impending. 

She kept no "help." She was a quiet, domestic woman. 
But she was not simply a household drudge. She knew the 



66 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



writings of the great poets of her nation. She had a fine mind, 
with a love of beauty, a soul that had learned and lingered 
over the great literary masterpieces of Israel, and had given 
poetic form to high thoughts that rose in her own heart. She 
was no stupid or silly or shallow girl; even as a maiden she 
was thoughtful and earnest. 

Who can know, save a mother, all that is in a woman's 
heart when the angel says to her, "The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee: wherefore that which is to be born shall be called a child 
of God"? There are some accents of the angel's message 




MOUNT CARMEL 



that are repeated in the ear of all sweet and expectant mother- 
hood; there are some strains from the Magnificat which should 
be sung above every cradle; there are some of Mary's joys and 
sorrows, some of her wonderings and hopes that all true 
mothers realize. 

Well may the brush of the artist seek the purest, sweetest 
faces of young mothers, and transfer them to canvas. They 
cannot too reverently or too beautifully set forth the ideal face 
of Mary the mother of Jesus. 

Mary had her trials. To see her baby grow up is the sad 
joy of a mother. To have him no longer her baby, but the 
Saviour of the world, was a joy to Mary that had in it a 
distinct sense of loss. To have him growing up so thoughtful, 
so wise, so given to asking questions which she could not 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 67 

answer, to find herself wishing a dozen times a day that she 
were wiser for her child's sake, this, as every mother knows, 
was not to Mary an unmitigated joy. 




the visit of mary to elizabeth 
(m. albertinelli, 1474-1515) 

And oh, the time was to come when she would feel that he 
had outgrown her! His ideals and hers were no longer akin. 
He would gently rebuke her chiding with his "Wist ye not that 
I must be about my Father's business?" and restrain her too 
eager ambition for her son by asking, "What have I to do 
with thee?" What had she to do with him? Why, she was 



68 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

his mother. How could she know, how could she be expected 
to understand, that he that did the will of God, the same was 
his mother, his brother or his sisier? Of all the keenest 
sorrows of motherhood is there one greater than that which 
the mother feels when she realizes that her baby is no longer 
hers alone; that the very realization of her hopes has taken 
him away from her? 

There is a tradition that Joseph was much older than Mary, 
and thus many of the artists represent him. The tradition has 
no historic foundation. It grows out of the fact that the New 
Testament speaks of Jesus as having brothers and sisters. 
Reluctance to believe that Mary had other children has led 
to the invention of a previous marriage on the part of Joseph. 
There is no ground for such a belief, nor any need of it. So 
far as the Bible hints, 'the Lord's brethren," who were three 
or more in number, and his sisters, of whom there were at 
least two and probably not less than three, were children of 
Joseph and Mary. It was a family of probably nine or more, 
and of the seven or more children, Jesus was the oldest. Jesus 
grew up among the other children with whom he had to share 
the privileges of the humble home, and to whom he was sim- 
ply, but splendidly, a brother, and in learning to be their elder 
brother, lie became the elder brother of all men. 

Reverently, in our imagination, we may reconstruct that 
home, the only home that Jesus remembered, and make real to 
ourselves as we may, the conditions of its daily life. We may 
be misled as to the details, but of the essential facts we have 
little doubt. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor 
with God and man. Among the influences which prepared 
him for his life-work were the home of Mary and the shop of 
Joseph. 

The early Church was not content with the silence of the 
gospel concerning the boyhood of Jesus, and set itself to 
supplying the missing information from an imagination that 
gloated over the marvelous. Jesus when a child made clay 
sparrows on the Sabbath, and when reproved for such a dese- 
cration of the day caused the birds to fly. Joseph was an 



THE HOUSE OF MARY AND THE SHOP OF JOSEPH 69 

inferior carpenter, and his shop turned out bad work, but he 
would take hold of one side and Jesus of the other side of a 
badly-made article, and pull it into shape. Jesus went to 




THE FOUNTAIN OF THE VIRGIN IN NAZARETH 

school, and knew more than his teacher. Jesus behaved him- 
self in an overbearing manner toward his playmates, and when 
they disliked him, used his divine power for their confusion, so 
that Joseph was nearly driven from Nazareth by reason of the 



7° 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



hostility which the work of Jesus produced. Such stories 
present an unlovely character, and we wonder how they could 
even have seemed worth inventing, or, being invented, how 
they could have been believed. 

Happily we have no such accounts as these in the Gospels, 
and we may be certain that they are wide of the truth. When 
Jesus returned in manhood to his boyhood home he faced no 
such record of youthful arrogance and precocity. People were 
unprepared for any remarkable claim on his part, which shows 
that his youth had been the youth of a normal Jewish boy. 
The testimony of John, "I have need to be baptized of thee," 
though John did not know him to be the Messiah, is clear 
proof that John had knowledge of his virtuous and noble 
youth, but this is the only claim John was justified in making 
for his boyhood. John certainly had no knowledge of his 
divine nature at this time. He increased in wisdom by improv- 
ing his opportunities, and increased in stature by hard 
physical labor; he increased in favor with God and man 
through no freakish manifestation of superhuman power, but 
by the persuasive and undeniable excellence of a worthy and 
inconspicuous life. 




ON THE WAY TO BETHLEHEM — (j. PORTAELS, l8l8 — ) 



CHAPTER IV 



THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 

A half dozen miles north of Jerusalem is a village called 
El-Bireh, near which is an excellent spring with the remains 
of an ancient reservoir, and not far from these are the ruins 
of an ancient khan. A Christian church was established here 
by the Templars in 1146, and a little of it is now standing. 
About a thousand people dwell now in El-Bireh. The place is 
of no particular historic importance, save through its associa- 
tion with a tradition which though not a very old one, is still of 
interest. From the 14th century this place has been displayed 
to pilgrims as the camping place of Joseph and Mary on their 
return journey from Jerusalem. There is nothing improbable 
in the tradition; the presence of the spring and the fact that 
pilgrims and caravans found it a convenient camping place, 
gave rise to the conjecture that this might have been the place 
where the absence of Jesus from the caravan was discovered. 
The parents of Jesus had gone "a day's journey from Jerusa- 
lem. " It was the custom of Jews in making long journeys to 
go a short distance on the first day, largely for the reason 
that anything left behind might the more readily be sent for. 
As the modern pilgrim journeys northward from Jerusalem, 
the objects of interest near the city commonly consume what 
is left of the day after starting; and so El-Bireh with its spring 
is still a favorite camping place. 

In my own journey from Galilee we paused here for 
luncheon, and from this spot took our last happy and expectant 
stage of the pilgrimage toward the Holy City. 

Much of the ministry of Jesus was spent in traveling. The 
Jerusalem feasts called every man to present himself three 
times a year at the temple. A number of these feasts Jesus 
personally attended, and besides this he made frequent pil- 

71 



72 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



grimages that covered nearly all of Galilee, much of Judaea 
and a portion of Samaria and the region beyond Jordan. 

Facilities for travel were none of the best, but had been 
greatly improved by the system of Roman roads. The main 
highways were kept in a state of reasonable repair for govern- 
mental purposes. One of these great arteries of national life 




THE BOY JESUS — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 

Joseph and his family would have struck near Shechem, if thev 
came through Samaria, and had followed it from there to 
Jerusalem. The country roads which led into this thorough- 
fare were generally mere rocky bridle-paths. The same con- 
dition of roads exists very largely at, the present day in 
Palestine. 

Most of the pilgrims on these great journeys went on foot. 
Where animals were employed, they were principally donkeys. 



THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 



73 



It is quite unlikely that many camels were used in these festal 
processions. The donkeys were less frequently ridden than 
used for the transportation of camp equipage. 

In these journeys it is probable that many of the tourists 
stopped by the way in homes where they had acquaintances. 
The injunction ''Forget not to shew love unto strangers" had 
a standing and special meaning in such a country as Palestine. 
Not only the Bible but the rabbis exhorted the people to hos- 
pitality. We find in ancient writings words such as these: 




JERUSALEM FROM MOUNT SCOPUS 



"Let thy house be wide open, and let the poor be the children 
of thy house." Bethphage and Bethany were especially noted 
for their hospitality; and in Jerusalem at the time of the feasts 
it was customary for private houses to hang out curtains to 
indicate that there still was room. 

In spite of these liberal provisions for the entertainment of 
strangers, however, a majority of the pilgrims to the passover 
would need to make their own arrangements for comfort on 
their journeys. We cannot forget that at the time of the 
enrolment. Bethlehem was so overcrowded that Joseph could 
not procure a lodging place for himself and Mary, even in their 



74 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



great necessity. Many people found shelter in khans. In 
these no charge was commonly made for shelter, but some one 
attached to the khan, who was usually a foreigner, was 
ready to provide, for payment, such things as were necessary. 
The good Samaritan cared for the man who had fallen among 
thieves until the time of his own leaving, but paid for his 
entertainment and care after that time. In these places were 
kept for sale such food as locusts, pickled or fried in honey or 




THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT 

flour, and also flour or bread, though these were frequently 
taken by the pilgrims themselves. Babylonian beer and 
home-made wine or cider were also for sale in these places. 
In a journey such as Joseph and Mary may often have made 
to Jerusalem it is easily possible that they would have spent 
one night in the home of a friend along the way, and another 
in a khan, and perhaps a third in a tent near some well-known 
spring. All these methods of entertainment were common in 
that day, and Jesus doubtless availed himself of all of these 
at one time or another. After his ministry began he commonly 
accepted the hospitality of some one among his hearers. In 



THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 



75 



the journey to Jerusalem during his boyhood we shall not be 
far wrong if we imagine the great caravan returning from the 
feast as camping out-of-doors on the first night. So large a 
company would have overflowed all the homes and khans, and 
the season was one in which camp life is most healthful and 
pleasant. 




MODERN TEACHERS OF THE LAW — JERUSALEM 

Probably Jesus, except when an infant, had never been to 
Jerusalem before the age of twelve. He doubtless went at 
this time to become a "son of the law," a ceremony that may 
be compared to confirmation or reception into church mem- 
bership. It commonly occurred about the age of fourteen, 
and was an important event in the life of a Jewish boy. The 
Gospels indicate that it was the custom of Joseph to attend 
the Jewish feasts, and that Mary, sometimes at least, accom- 
panied him. The wife was not bound by the law to attend 



7 6 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



these feasts, but many women did attend them and Mary 
at least on one occasion, was among them. Such a journey 
must have been a most acceptable break in the somewhat 
restricted life of an Oriental woman. 

But if the occasion was one of great interest to Mary, 
it was much more so to her Son! The sight of Jerusalem is 
still a beautiful and welcome one to the pilgrim who comes 
southward from Galilee across the Samaritan hills. It bursts 




JESUS AMONG THE DOCTORS — (HOFMANN, 1824— ) 

upon his vision like a dream of beauty, and grows more distinct 
as each turn in the road and each hilltop on the highway 
brings it nearer to the weary yet eager pilgrim. But what 
must it have been to an eager, reverent Jewish lad, already for 
his years a thoughtful student of the law, and a lover of his 
country. He had seen no other great city, and to him 
Jerusalem was the embodiment of all sacred traditions, and 
the visible exponent of all national hopes. Certainly the days 
of the feast must have been great days for the boy Jesus. 
Edersheim thinks it quite certain that the returning caravan 



THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 



77 



to which Joseph belonged did not remain through the entire 
feast, and that the conference of Jesus with the teachers of 




ON THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM 



the law occurred in one of their formal gatherings on one of 
the porches of the temple in which the doctors conversed 




THE MOSQUE OF EL AKSA, ON SOUTH END OF THE TEMPLE AREA 

freely with all who cared to listen and to question, and in 
which the inquiries of an earnest and intelligent boy would 
have received attention and excited interest. 

We are not to suppose that the doctors sat at his feet to 



78 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



learn, or that they thought of him as a supernatural prodigy. 
It was he who was there as the learner, still increasing in 
wisdom and stature. There is no suggestion in the Gospel 
narrative that the boy attempted to usurp prerogatives of the 
teachers, but only that he showed a sincere interest and intelli- 
gent appreciation of spiritual truths that excited the wonder 
and called forth the admiration of the doctors of the law. 




THE BOY JESUS — (wiNTERSTEIN) 



If Edersheim is right, and Joseph and Mary did not remain 
through the entire feast, this fact may account for the delay 
of Jesus through some misunderstanding as to the time of 
their return. The feast seems still to have been in progress 
when they arrived at Jerusalem next day and found him after 
anxious search. So carried away was the young lad with 
the new and strange experiences of this wonderful week, that 
Galilee and the carpenter shop were forgotten, and even Joseph 
and Mary seem to have faded from his thought. He must 
be in his Father's house, and he wondered that he had not 
been there before, and that they did not understand that this 
was his place. But he readily accepted the situation as they 



THE LAD IN THE TEMPLE 



79 




INTERIOR OF MOSQUE OF OMAR 




THE MOSQUE OF OMAR ON TEMPLE SITE 



8o 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



made it plain to him, and went back with them to Nazareth, 
and for the next eighteen years lived quietly as the carpenter's 
apprentice, and, at length, as the carpenter. 

It would be a wonderful revelation if we could look into the 
soul of that fine, bright boy on his way back from Jerusalem 
to Galilee, and know what emotions filled his heart as the 
result of that new vision of life. That it influenced him pro- 
foundly there can be no doubt. Such incidents in boyhood 




A CARAVAN RESTING 



are pregnant with destiny, and the writers of the Gospels look 
back with interest and perhaps with wonder to that journey 
as one that conspicuously marked the quality of his youth. It 
is well that we posses it; it is well, too, that we know it to be 
quite exceptional. For a single day it brings the boy Jesus 
into the light of our knowledge and then again sends him 
back to his humble duty as the carpenter and a son of the law. 
He has returned, cherishing his patient ambition, and more 
and more wondering what is to be his work in life. He is still 
subject to Joseph and Mary. But the boy- Jesus has grown in 
a single week into a new stage of spiritual activity and 
anticipation. 



CHAPTER V 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 

The years at Nazareth sped silently, swiftly and unrecorded, 
and Jesus became a man. He was now less frequently referred 
to as "the carpenter's son" than as "the carpenter." He was 
to be more than a carpenter, but his entrance upon life was 
as yet a thing unrevealed to men, and probably known to him- 
self only in wonderings and inward strivings. Patiently he 
worked at his bench, and waited God's time. 

At length when the country was stirred by the preaching 
of a young prophet, John, Jesus went away upon a journey, 
far to the south and east, and was gone from Nazareth nearly 
two months. Forty days of that time he was alone in the 
wilderness, but before he entered the solitude he received 
baptism from John. 

Six months before the birth of Jesus this cousin, John, was 
born in "the hill country of Judaea," as the Gospel informs us, 
and, as tradition declares, at the old patriarchal city of Hebron. 
Others locate his birth at Ain Karim. He was the son of 
Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, and of Zacharias, a priest. 

When about thirty years of age he began to preach. His 
gospel was the gospel of repentance, and to it his own frugal 
life and shaggy garb lent interest and power. We shall look 
at his character when we come to Jesus' own words about it. 
We may now consider the conditions of the times in which his 
preaching began, the place of baptism as it now appears, and 
the meeting of Jesus and John. 

We can understand John and his message the better when 
we remember the conditions of life, both civil and religious, 
during the times of his boyhood and youth. 

Politically, affairs had suffered a sad change for the worse. 
Tiberius was on the throne in Rome, and his reign was one 



82 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

of merciless severity in Palestine. During the reign of 
Augustus, when Jesus and John were born, the Jews, though 
taxed and under restraint, were protected; but Tiberius was 
bitterly opposed to the Jews, and cared little if at all for the 
wrongs they suffered. As to governors near at hand, "Herod 
the King," died in April, B. C. 4. The slaughter of the infants 
at Bethlehem was perhaps his last bloody deed. His sons 
divided his domain under the power of Rome. Archelaus was 




THE RIVER JORDAN 

ethnarch of Judaea, Samaria and Idumaea, and reigned in wick- 
edness and sensuality from 4 B. C. to 6 A. D., when he was 
banished from his capital at Jericho to Vienna in Gallia; and 
few mourned his departure, as few had mourned his father's 
death. But with him ceased the tetrarchy. Judaea thence- 
forth was attached to Syria, and was governed by Roman 
procurators, who were in turn subject to the Roman governor 
of Syria. There were seven of these in the first half-century 
following the birth of Christ, and of them one has attained 
an immortality of infamy in the oldest Christian creed — "He 
suffered under Pontius Pilate/' 

To the north the family of the Herods still reigned — Philip 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 



83 



as tetrarch of the provinces north and east of the Jordan, and 
Antipas as tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea. John was soon to 
meet Antipas face to face, and rebuke him for his immorality, 
and Jesus was to meet both Herod and Pilate on the day of his 
crucifixion. These were the two men who exercised political 
control over Palestine at the beginning of the ministry of the 
Baptist — Herod, the murderer of John, and Pilate, the 
murderer of Jesus. 




RUSSIAN PILGRIMS AT JORDAN 



Religiously, the nation was in a sad state. The high-priest- 
hood was in disrepute. The temple at Jerusalem was the scene 
of a formal worship, into which had crept many and grave 
abuses. The leaders were divided into three classes, the 
Pharisees, the representatives of that severe and formal type 
of religion which Nehemiah established after the exile, but 
which was now more concerned with refinements of doctrine 
than with spiritual realities; the Sadducees, who were less 
numerous, skeptical and proud, among whom was the high 
priest Caiaphas; and the Essenes, an ascetic order, numbering 
about four thousand, living simple and severe lives, and seeking 
holiness by withdrawal from the world. No one of these had 



8 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

power to bring about "the kingdom of God," for which men 
were looking and praying. 

In such a time John came to manhood. A Judsean by birth, 
and a priest by inheritance, he early learned the inadequacy of 
existing forces to meet the needs of the time. Living an 
austere and ascetic life, brooding over the evils of the age in 
which he lived, John felt in his heart the necessity of a new 
order and the conviction that the time was at hand for the 
coming of the kingdom of heaven. He was sure that the King 
had already come, but he did not know him as such. John 
knew himself incapable of bringing in that new social and 
religious order which the prophets had called "the kingdom 
of God," but he undertook to be its herald, and to discover 
and introduce its King. 

John's own message was simple, "Repent ye; for the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand." When men asked him what thev 
were to do, he told them to be just, sympathetic, compas- 
sionate; to cease to rely on their descent from Abraham, and 
to look for the coming of the kingdom. 

Throughout all Palestine spread the news of the preaching 
of John. New hopes stirred in the hearts of men when they 
heard his message. Eagerly men, especially young men, 
flocked to> hear him. Among the rest came Jesus, probablv 
with other young men from Galilee. Did he know that he 
was coming forth to his ordination? What strivings of spirit, 
as he worked at the bench, lay behind the decision to go to 
Jordan and attend the preaching of John! And what new 
power of conviction may have come to him as he listened! 
We have no reason to assume that he had ceased to grow in 
knowledge and in the favor of God. Some growth of knowl- 
edge, some progress in divine favor, surely preceded and 
accompanied the act of his public consecration. Some new 
meaning of his own mission to men became clear to him, and 
he enrolled himself as a companion of John the Baptist, and 
was baptized by him in Jordan. 

The River Jordan is unlike any other stream on earth. 
From the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea it lies far below the 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 



85 



level of the ocean. Its great rapidity unfits it for navigation; 
it thus divides and does not unite. It is insignificant in breadth 
and easily fordable at a number of places, and is also spanned 
by a few bridges. It emerges from the Sea of Galilee clear 
and blue; but its swift descent brings it to the Dead Sea turbid 




THE BAPTISM OF JESUS — (GUIDO RENT, I575-1642) 

and yellow. In popular thought Jordan is a stream of dignity 
and power; and so most tourists are disappointed when they 
discover a mere muddy creek. They have hardly seen the real 
Jordan; the stream above is more impressive. The part of the 
Jordan which tourists see, however, is the part most intimately 
associated with gospel history, and while the river is not a 



86 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

formidable boundary, its swiftness and general depth have 
made it in all generations a river of unique importance. While 
popular imagination gives to it a dignity which the actual 
stream dispels, the real importance of the river has not been 
exaggerated in the common mind. 

The valley of the Jordan grows insufferably hot, and is quite 
unhealthy for people who are not acclimated, and the vegeta- 
tion is almost tropical. The contrast between it and the 
wilderness of Judaea is as great as could well be imagined. 
Palms, oranges and lemons abound here, and the scene 
delights the eye, but the sterile plain toward the Dead Sea, 
which irrigation would render wonderfully fertile, sends up 
great clouds of dust in the dry season, and the great heat 
makes the journey to the scene of Christ's baptism uncom- 
fortable. Uncomfortable as it is, and somewhat disappointing 
when accomplished, it is a journey which pilgrims from all over 
the world remember with satisfaction; and princes are proud 
to have been christened in water brought from the scene of 
Christ's baptism. 

At some unknown place called Bethany, and wrongly trans- 
lated Bethabara, on the east side of the Jordan and opposite 
the wilderness of Judaea, John gathered his crowds and bap- 
tized at the river (John 1:28). Various attempts have been 
made to locate this Bethany, which of course is wholly distinct 
from the Bethany where Lazarus lived. Its name is thought 
to mean "house of ships," or possibly "ferry boat" or "house 
of fords." We do not know the precise spot, but can make the 
scene sufficiently real to ourselves when we stand in imagina- 
tion at that spot which for centuries has been accepted as the 
place where Jesus was baptized. The traditional spot answers 
all the necessities of the case. It is a ford nearly opposite 
Jericho, and noted also as that said to have been used by the 
children of Israel in their crossing to capture that city. Here 
the river is swift and muddy, but thousands of tourists every 
year come to bathe in its waters, and to carry away flasks of 
the water of the stream where Jesus submitted to baptism that 
thus he might fulfil all righteousness. 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 



87 



John and Jesus met, instantly recognized each other, and 
then parted. Each bore his loyal testimony to the other; but 
their work was done apart. The holy life of which John knew, 
and the dove-like halo which he saw above the head of his 
carpenter-cousin, convinced him that Jesus was "He that 
should come;" and he prepared to decrease that Jesus might 




THE BAPTISM OF JESUS — (a. VERROCCHIO, I435-I488) 

increase. Jesus, too, knew John; discerned in him that fear- 
less integrity, that loyalty to God and duty, that unselfish 
nobility which characterized him, and bore his fervent testi- 
mony to the man than whom greater had not been born. But 
much as they had in common, their work was unlike. John's 
mission was to complete the old dispensation, while that of 
Jesus was to begin, and only to begin, the new. 

It has often been asked why Jesus, who knew no sin, con- 



88 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

sented to be baptized with a baptism for the remission of sins. 
It is probable that the simplest answer is the truest, namely, 
that he had no deep, obscure motive, but wished simply to 
enroll himself among those who were the companions of John. 
His relation to John was of great value to him throughout 
his whole ministry. It was John's testimony that brought 
him his first disciples and secured for him his first public 
recognition. The name of John was a protection to him until 
very near the end of his ministry. Publicly to acknowledge 
the worth of John was not beneath him. It need not trouble 
us that our Lord, who entered so fully into our human life, 
accepted this symbol at the entrance of his own public ministry. 
We may not be sure of all his reasons, but the record of the 
fact is indisputable. 

It would be a mistake to think of the baptism of Jesus as 
of no value to himself. It marked an epoch in his life. It 
opened for him a new experience. It identified him anew with 
the race in his submission to the conditions of righteousness 
in human life. It made more real to him the presence and 
power of the Spirit. With a new richness, the Spirit was now 
his; its descent at his baptism was his ordination for his life- 
work, and sent him forth confident, earnest and relying upon 
God. The event drew a wide line of demarkation between his 
past and future. The neighbors, who of late had thought him 
restless, ambitious, erratic, perhaps, would know him no more 
at the carpenter's bench. When he returned into Galilee it 
would be "in the power of the Spirit," and, reading the words 
of the prophet of old, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor," 
he would be able to add, "To-day hath this scripture been 
fulfilled in your ears." 

We need not doubt that he later received more of the same 
Spirit as his work developed, and his deeds grew more vari- 
ously illustrative of the power of God. Angels came down 
and ministered to him in his need, and if these spirits of light, 
then surely also the Spirit of God, of which he was born, and 
which anew had come upon him at baptism, came more and 



THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 



8 9 



more into his life till God gave not the Spirit to him by 
measure, but of the divine fullness poured into that human life 
all that humanity could contain and reveal of the nature of 
God himself. 




THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 
(W. HOLM AN HUNT, 1827 — ) 



CHAPTER VI 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 

The traveler from Jerusalem to the Jordan leaves trees and 
fertile fields behind him at Bethany, and almost at once enters 
a sterile and broken country. Passing the Apostles' Spring, 
and later the Inn of the Good Samaritan, water and human 
habitations alike are forgotten, or remembered as things 
belonging to a world long out of sight. The road follows the 
edge of a deep ravine, on whose further side appears a curious 
monastery, built on the side of the cliff. 

Here, where Elijah is said to have been nourished by 
the ravens, Greek monks maintain their place of residence 
and of prayer in the midst of the deep solitude. Nearly six 
hundred feet from the top of their dwelling the dry wady of 
the Kidron yawns below them. Above are the blue heavens, 
and all around is sterility and silence. A habitation such as 
this in the midst of desolation accentuates the loneliness of 
the situation, and causes one to feel even more than if there 
were no life there at all, the everlasting silence and mystery 
and awe of the situation. A few miles down the valley, at its 
junction with the wide plain of the Jordan, and a little farther 
up the river, rises the Mount of Quarantania, the traditional 
scene of the temptation of Jesus. The sides of the hill contain 
many cliffs where anchorites have dwelt, many of them 
prolonging to as many years the forty days of Christ's solitude 
and meditation. This is the traditional "exceeding high moun- 
tain" from which the tempter showed the Lord all the king- 
doms of the world. It presents to the plain a perpendicular 
wall of rock which Robinson estimates as twelve to fifteen 
hundred feet above the river, and of which Thomson says, 
"The side facing the plain is as perpendicular and apparently 
as high as the rock of Gibraltar, and upon the summit are still 
visible the ruins of an ancient convent." It is probable that 

90 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 



91 



the name Quarantania, which refers to the forty days, and the 
tradition which the name commemorates, are not older than 
the Crusades, but the situation readily lends itself to the 
incident. 




WHERE ELIJAH HID FROM JEZEBEL 

Somewhere in this vast wilderness Jesus met and decided 
the fundamental questions of his life-work. He had become 
conscious of his power, and that fact in itself constituted an 
element of temptation. The question what to do with his 
new and supreme strength now came to him for decision. He 
was no longer a carpenter; he had turned his back forever 



92 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

upon the associations of his childhood and young manhood. 
He was to follow the example of John in undertaking a public 
ministry. But his call to preach implied more of power and 
a wider ministry than John's; in what spirit and for what 
ends were this power and ministry to be exercised? 

The older views of the temptation were generally gross 
and materialistic. A dark and mighty Satan dealing with a 
weak and puny Christ has been the general conception of art. 
It should be remembered as against this view, with what 
courage and strength Jesus met and mastered his temptations. 
He was no weakling, lifted passive and helpless by a dark and 
almost omnipotent Satan. Jesus was master of the situation 
throughout. 

The temptation of Jesus was real and strong. It is no 
ideal picture which is given here, but the genuine description 
of the heart-struggle of a pure soul with its own various and 
human impulses and ambitions when it stands on the thresh- 
old of its career. The temptations may have been subjective 
and not objective — I incline to believe them to have been 
subjective. I do not know in what language God might 
choose to set forth the account of a subjective struggle if not 
in such as this; but subjective or objective, it was a genuine 
and powerful one. Jesus was not posing, but suffering. 

If it be objected that temptability is incompatible with 
sinless character, it may be answered that so far as we know 
human beings, character, good or bad, sinful or sinless, 
becomes possible only in the presence of temptation. Nor 
need this be so far beyond our comprehension that temptation 
may be without sin; for do we not all know something of a 
sinless temptation? Sinful as we are, have we not all at times 
resisted, and successfully? Have we not sometimes come out 
of the furnace without the smell of fire upon our garments 
and with a holy and confident triumph? Such experiences as 
we have all had, such even as the worst man may have known, 
may make it possible for us to understand that Christ could 
be tempted and yet sinless. On the other hand, the memories 
of our frequent falls stand in complete contrast with his heroic 
and successful resistance. 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 



93 



Upon the face of the narrative there are three temptations. 
But I am not sure that we ought not to count a fourth, which 
entered into all of the others, and was twice suggested in 
words by the tempter, "If thou be the Son of God." There 
was a suggested doubt. And no wonder. What a mission 
was this upon which Jesus was to enter! What infinite possi- 
bilities of humiliation and of failure lay before him! Well 
may he have asked, "Am I, the son of Mary, also the Son of 




THE WILDERNESS OF JUDAEA 



God? Is the carpenter's bench in very truth a thing of the 
past? Is there to come into my life a sudden and a mighty 
change? What did the descent of the dove mean? What is 
it to be the Son of God? How am I sure of this? In what 
have I become different from what I was yesterday? Can it be 
that I am the Son of God? And even if I were sure of it, can 
I make any one else believe it?" 

All great souls feel something of this when they enter upon 
their life-work. These are the wrestlings with the angel 
whose name we know not. Sometimes in the struggle with 



94 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

the unknown we cry, "Get thee behind me, Satan," and then 
again we wrestle on in the uncertainty until we feel that we 
have prevailed with God. So we struggle and question until 
the day breaks. It is this element of uncertainty, this lack 
of objective demonstration, that gives a tragic element to the 
dawn of the Christian life. Good people meet it all through 
life at every important question and issue. Paul had this 
struggle when he took the bold step of crossing from Asia into 
Europe, following the vision, which did not materialize, of 
the man of Macedonia asking for help. His flesh had no rest. 
Without were fightings; within were fears. He had followed 
the vision obedient to the will of God; but how did he know 
it was God's will? Many brave souls, having burned their 
boats behind them, start upon the work to which their choice 
commits them with momentary sinking of heart. They must 
conquer now, or die. But what if they have wrongly estimated 
their powers? What if it is all a delusion? 

This is the temptation implied in the challenge, "If thou be 
the Son of God." As yet he had wrought no miracles. The 
consciousness of his power was purely subjective and theoret- 
ical. How could he assure himself that his hardened hand 
could heal the sick? How could he convince himself, much 
less others, that he had power to forgive sins? He was sure 
of it, perhaps, but what if he ventured on this assurance and 
then failed? Ah, the doubt of it: "If thou be the Son of 
God!" Here is the opportunity to test it apart from the 
curious crowds. Here is a chance to assure himself, and at 
the same time make his power serve himself. And if, forsooth, 
he can make stones bread, can he not, Midas-like, turn all 
he touches to gold? 

In like manner we are tempted to use what God has given 
us for merely physical ends. So was Adam tempted to put the 
physical above the material. This is the lowest form of direct 
temptation, and is where the whole race falls, not as individ- 
uals only, but as a race. We point to our great country, its 
millions of acres, its spreading fields, its mighty reapers and 
threshers, its powerful and productive mills, its railroads, its 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 



95 



wholesale stores, and its mammoth bakeries. How great a 
thing is civilization! So it is, and it is God's gift.' The man 
who makes wheat to grow from the earth constantly makes 
bread from stones. It is not sinful, but divine. But he who 
sees in the power which God has given to modern life only 




THE TEMPTATION — (CORWIN KNAPP LINSON) 

(courtesy of s. s. m'clure CO. COPYRIGHT) 

the opportunity of feeding more men or feeding them better, 
fails to find God's most characteristic work in modern life. 
Men may coin their acres into bread and yet starve in their 
spiritual needs. 

We must not forget that even the temptation to make 



96 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

bread the end and aim of his mission was a real one to a man 
who had been a breadwinner, earning his food by his own 
labor. Not only his own bread but the bread of those who 
might be associated with him could be provided by his power, 
if he chose to use it so. The temptation to make commerce 
out of divine power and to traffic with the inheritance of God, 
is as old as Esau and as modern as the twentieth century, 
The first temptation decided that the chief ambition of Jesus 
was not to be the mere quest of bread. Yet Jesus ate bread 
all his life and never despised the struggle for it, nor under- 
valued the importance of man's having food and enough of 
it. But the Scripture is eternally true, that "Man shall not 
live by bread alone." 

The next temptation raised the struggle to a higher plane. 
Why not use his power to gratify the curious, to excite 
admiration, and to minister to his own spiritual pride? Thus 
he could prove his power, and by it enforce his teaching. It 
is a subtle form of temptation, and the more insidious because 
only those experience it who have made some progress in 
goodness. Christ recognized the full import of this invitation 
of Satan and successfully resisted it. It came to him again 
and again in the course of his ministry in the demands of the 
curious crowds that he work miracles for their satisfaction. The 
precise point at which the working of miracles ceased to be 
a means of spiritual good and became the occasion of pride and 
pretense, Jesus infallibly detected, and the more so because he 
so swiftly and so faithfully met the issue at the outset. 

Let us realize how thoroughly Jesus conquered the tempta- 
tion to use his power to draw crowds and excite admiration. 
Again and again he concealed his mighty works. Again and 
again he withdrew from men, though the need of some of them 
was sore, lest the mere working of miracles should make his 
mission one of legerdemain. He had little reliance upon the 
supernatural as a means of grace. He taught his disciples to 
believe in him, if possible, because of his revelation of the 
Father, and if not, then, and alas, to believe for the very 
works' sake. 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 



97 



Jesus did not make his appeal to men as the Christ, but as 
the Son of man. Not till late in his ministry did he permit 
men to know that he was the Christ, and those who earlier 
discovered it were commanded to keep it secret. The work 
of Christ was not a campaign of self-advertising. He came to 
reveal, not himself, but the Father. From beginning to end 
he refused to cast himself down from pinnacles to make the 
multitude gape, or to trust in the power of angels to sustain 




THE MOUNT OF TEMPTATION FROM THE JORDAN VALLEY 

him. At the end he might have had ten legions of angels to 
defend him, but he faced the court of Pilate and the world in 
the simple majesty of his manhood. So completely did he 
resist the tempter, and prevail. 

Then came the last and keenest temptation. If there be 
any pure ambition it is that for fame and glory. To be the 
Son of God that he might eat, would be contemptible. To be 
the Son of God that he might make the curious wonder, 
would be beneath him. But to be the Son of God and a king — 
and such a king — this would be different. To rule the earth, 
and to make it such an earth as he could have made it — this 



98 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

must have appealed to him. We have no reason to believe 
that Christ was tempted to be a wicked ruler but only a 
selfish one. The world was groaning under the Roman yoke. 
From the remotest provinces of Rome came to Judaea and 
Galilee frequent rumors of the rottenness of the empire, and 
of its readiness to totter. What would now happen if a leader 
such as Jesus, with his power of hand and brain, with his 
power over nature and over men, should rise in this remote 
province, surrounded by ardent followers? Other provinces 
would rise in rebellion; the empire would be in confusion. 
His cause had more than a fighting chance. He could repeat 
the large success of Herod; he could perhaps do more, and 
rule the world. This was the very tangible temptation which 
came to him. Over and over he had to fight against it when 
the people would take him and make him king by force. He 
might possibly have been the successor of Caesar. He might 
have reigned in Rome. But to do it would leave the world 
unsaved. To his eternal glory and ours, he did not do it. He 
had as good right to do this as any man has to seek first his 
own pleasure or power, but not even to the Son of God would 
selfishness have been otherwise than a worship of Satan. 

I do not agree with those who affirm that Satan lied in 
promising to Jesus a kingdom. By such tactics as he proposed, 
kingdoms have often been established. Jesus could well esti- 
mate the ability of Satan to deliver a kingdom, and there 
would have been no temptation if he had not known the king- 
dom as a possibility. 

The Bible puts in plain, blunt English, what I suppose is 
a paraphrase of Satan's actual words. I have no idea that 
Satan said in so many words, "Fall down and worship me." 
That would have been a most undiplomatic way of putting the 
case. What Satan actually said was probably more like this: 
"Be a patiot. Free your country. Do not waste your splendid 
talents on simple minded fishermen. Be great — not bad, of 
course, but be not righteous overmuch. It does not pay. Be 
first of all as great as you can, and incidentally be as good 
as selfish greatness will let you be. The world owes vou a 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS 



99 



living. What are stones good for but bread? Pinnacles are 
for your exhibition of God's presence with you. Kingdoms 
are for those who can rule them — get one while you can. 
Trust God £.nd go ahead, and it will be to your advantage." 
This temptation was the more real to a Jew because the 




THE MOUNT OF TEMPTATION — NEAR VIEW 

kingdom that then existed was so oppressive that in resisting 
it he might almost hide from himself the ambition under the 
name of religion and patriotism. To choose for himself a 
career of fame and glory; to get renown as the deliverer of his 
people from the burden of the Roman yoke, and at the same 
time to escape the cross and the shame; to make the kingdoms 
of the world his own — but by the failure to do his duty as the 



IOO 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



son of God; this was what Satan offered; but Jesus never for 
a moment swerved from his decision through all the anxieties 
and burdens of the next three years. Though crucified as an 
insurgent against Caesar, his kingdom was not of this world. 
When Jesus returned again to mingle among men, he re- 
entered the Jordan valley. It is impossible to imagine a more 
cheerful or exhilarating contrast to the wilderness of Judaea. 




THE TEMPTATION — (CORNICELIUS, 1825 — ) 



To emerge from the barrenness and loneliness of that wilder- 
ness into the life and verdure of the valley is to feel a sudden 
uplift, refreshing alike to body and mind. The tourist of 
to-day, after a ride of five or six hours through the same wilder- 
ness, comes forth with feelings of exhilaration. This and more 
Jesus felt. He felt, we may believe, a new strength within 
himself, a new power to deal with the problems of the world. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES 



Immediately on his return from the wilderness, our Lord 
began to gather a band of disciples. His first followers came 
before his first sermon. It was not his invitation that secured 
their confession of faith in him, but the testimony of John, 




ON JORDAN S BANKS 

"Behold the Lamb of God." It was John, later known as the 
evangelist, and Andrew, to whom John spoke, and these two 
left John, the heroic, the self-effacing, and followed Jesus. 

"Where dwellest thou?" they asked him; they themselves 
were not at home, and had no place to invite him. "Come 
and see," said Jesus. We do not know what was his lodging 
beside the Jordan. He had come out of the wilderness after 
a solitude of six weeks; we should like to know what habita- 
tion first constituted his home on his return among men. But 
the disciples do not tell us about the place in which they found 

IOI 



102 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



him established for his brief sojourn. Perhaps they did not 
notice. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they went 
with him, and they sat with him while the short February day 
drew to its close, and the sun went down. They probably spent 
the evening, the day was so nearly gone, and the questions 




JESUS, PETER AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 
(CHR. VERLAT) 



burning their hearts were so great, and that evening, or a 
part of it, was shared also with a third companion. The first 
two were John and Andrew, and the third, whom Andrew 
found with an eager, breathless message, was Peter. "We 
have found the Christ," he cried, and it was not a difficult 
thing which he accomplished when "he brought him to Jesus." 
There they sat, the three of them, and in his presence, in that 
February twilight, three fishermen away on a vacation, their 



THE FIRST DISCIPLES 



103 



mental horizon suddenly enlarged with the vision of their 
nation's hope. "We have found the Christ!" The conviction 
grew strong in the hearts of these three men, and they forth- 
with became his disciples. 




the calling of peter and andrew 
(baroccio, 1508-1573) 

It was well they went at once to the Master's temporary 
home by the Jordan, for he left next day. Yet, next morning 
before leaving he had called another disciple, Philip, and 
Philip, with an eagerness like Andrew's, had found his own 
brother Nathansel and brought him to Jesus. So between 
four o'clock of one day and noon of the next our Lord's first 
five disciples had been secured. 



IG 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Not much was required of them at the outset. Such a 
thing as leaving their homes to be with him was not so much 
as hinted at, They simply confessed to the great hope which 
their nation had cherished for centuries, and which they now 
believed was to be realized in him. 

With this hope mounting high in their hearts they went 
back to their homes and their fishing. Yet as they cast their 
nets they talked of him whom they had seen and conversed 
with beside the Jordan, and whom John proclaimed, and they 
believed, to be the Lamb of God. They never forgot that first 
meeting. Sixty years afterward, one of them, writing about 
it, could tell the very hour of the day and the very words of 
their first dialogue. They were following him after they heard 
John speak, and he turned and asked them, "What seek ye?" 
They asked him, "Master, where dwellest thou?" He answered, 
"Come and see." The rest of it was less distinct. Probably 
they said little, and soon forgot their own questions; but him 
and his gracious, constraining power they never forgot from 
that hour to the ends of their lives. 

Thus, without making bread from stones, or working mir- 
acles or announcing a programme attractive to ambition, Jesus 
manifested his mastery over men. The testimony of John was 
unsolicited; the winning of the first disciples was without con- 
straint. Easily, naturally, and without resistance, these dis- 
ciples came to Jesus, and Jesus received them and held their 
devotion to the end. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 

The traveler from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee stops by 
the way to permit his horse to drink from an old stone sar- 
cophagus beside the public spring of Kefr Kenna. Around 
the spring gather the usual group of village maidens with their 
water-pots, chatting and gossiping and shrinking in mock 
modesty from his camera. They speak no English, but under- 
stand his question concerning the name of the village and 
answer, "Kahnah'of Galilee." Between spreading orchards of 
olive-trees, walled in by cactus hedges, the tourist rides up 
the low hill into a dirty city, and finds himself between a 
Greek church on the left and the Latin convent on the right. 
Here he dismounts and is welcomed at the door of the church 
by the Greek priest, who shows him the simple interior of the 
small house of worship. It is cool and restful after the hot sun, 
and the priest extends a pleasant greeting and shows the few 
minor articles of interest, and the one chief attraction of the 
place, a huge water-pot, which tradition declares to have been 
one of those employed by Jesus in his first miracle. The 
spring at which the tourist's horse has been drinking is sup- 
posed by the Greeks to have been that at which the water-pots 
were filled. The church is believed to occupy the site of the 
house in which the marriage took place. The tourist may 
question the accuracy of the tradition, and be more than sus- 
picious of the preservation of the water-pot, but the exhibition 
of these tangible things serves to give a semblance of reality 
to the story. Here, if tradition may be believed, "The con- 
scious water saw its Lord and blushed." 

Across the street near at hand is the Latin monastery. The 
father at its head is intelligent and interested in archaeology. 
He has personally conducted excavations on the convent prop- 

105 



io6 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



erty, and believes that the monastery covers the foundation of 
the original house, and also that he has discovered the cistern 
from which the water was drawn. Here, too, is another water- 
pot of antique mold. The tourist must accustom himself to 
the duplication of sacred relics in Palestine. Each sacred spot 
has its Greek and its Latin shrine, and each its own collection 
of relics. The tourist must see both collections if he would 
be sure of having seen the genuine one, and he is fortunate 
if, even then, he can feel certain. For myself, I more than 
questioned the genuineness of any of these recently discov- 
ered mementos. It is quite enough to say of them that they 




THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 
(PAUL VERONESE, I528-I588) 



are undoubtedly old, and may be of the kind used in the New 
Testament days. This is quite sufficient, too; for relics such 
as these give us a visible link between the present and the 
past. The Latins, like the Greek priest, treated us with hos- 
pitality, and offered us wine of the kind said to have been pro- 
duced by the miracle. Across the interesecting street in a little 
schoolhouse used by the Greek church, the women made for 
us lemonade from native lemons and a great loaf of granulated 
sugar from which they broke small portions for our refreshing 
drink. I am no judge of wine and never drink it, but the 
lemonade was good. 



THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 



107 



The modern Cana contains six hundred inhabitants, half of 
them Mohammedans and the majority of the remainder 
There are a few Latins and a still smaller number of Protest- 
ants. 

No description is given in the New Testament which enables 
us to see how widely the Cana of to-day differs from that of 
nineteen hundred years ago. The modern Cana is a typical 
Galilaean village, and that is probably true of the ancient 




THE SPRING AT CANA OF GALILEE 



Cana. The people are more hospitable than in many of the 
Palestine villages, and the treatment which our party received 
both from the officials and the villagers was all that could be 
desired. Here we found industries in progress of the sort 
mentioned in the Bible; the girls gathering the grass in the 
field and the thorn-plant from the hills for fuel for the ovens; 
the women grinding at the mill, and all the activities of life 
progressing much as in Bible times. It may be that the vil- 
lage is not very unlike that where Jesus performed the miracle. 



I0 8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

It would be worth much to witness a wedding- in Cana, but 
this was not our privilege. 

We know, however, the marriage customs of that day. There 
were two ceremonies, the betrothal and the wedding. In Judaea 
much was made of the former, but habits were simpler in Gali- 
lee, and the engagement service was attended with less cere- 
mony. At this preliminary service the bridegroom handed the 
bride a coin or a letter as a token of espousal. From that time 
the two were regarded in law and in society as married, save 
that as yet they lived apart. 

The actual marriage was celebrated in the evening, and 
began with a procession, headed with music, and accompanied 
by the distribution of oil, wine and nuts. Then came the 
bride, veiled and accompanied by bearers of torches and flow- 
ers. When she arrived at her new home, accompanied by "the 
children of the bride-chamber," she was presented to the bride- 
groom with the formula, "Take her according to the Law of 
Moses and of Israel." Bride and groom were then crowned with 
wreaths of flowers. Then the document was signed which pro- 
vided for the dowry and support. Then, after ceremonial 
washings, followed the marriage feast, which often lasted a 
day or more; and then, "the friends of the bridegroom" con- 
ducted the young couple to their own chamber. 

Here our Lord came with his disciples just after his tempta- 
tion and his unalterable decision to overcome the world. Into 
the world with all its life and daily need he merged from the 
baptism and temptation. It was no ascetic who came back 
among men from the temptation and the triumph, but one 
who was still in sympathy with every rational and justifiable 
interest in life. It was no pressing case of need, no desperate 
sorrow that first called forth his divine assistance, but the gen- 
erous and beautiful desire to add to the sum of human joy. 
Life is real and earnest, and its deep concerns are serious and 
even strenuous, but Jesus at the outset of his ministry showed 
his abiding sympathy with that which is joyous and festal. 

God's good gifts to us are not measured by our absolute 
necessities. It is his delight to give to his children more than 



THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 



109 



they need. A score of blossoms shed their beauty and fra- 
grance upon earth for every one that is necessary for fruit, and 
the fruit is more abundant than the necessity of seed. Com- 
mentators interpret Scripture in the light of a "law of parsi- 
mony" by which it is assumed that God employs no needlessly 
great cause for a given effect; and that the supernatural is not 
to be assumed where the facts can be explained by the nat- 
ural. It is a good and wise law; but it must not be applied too 
narrowly. God rejoices to exceed our necessities with the 




THE VILLAGE OF CANA 



plenitude of his own goodness and love. I have often thought 
that this first miracle of Jesus might be, among all he wrought, 
most truly indicative of the spirit in which he came. Into a 
company not oppressed by poverty or disease or sin, he 
entered, sharing their rejoicings; and the majesty of his power 
was displayed that the joy of men might grow from more to 
more. 

It is with pathetic interest that we remember how Jesus 
spoke of himself as the bridegroom come to bring joy to his 
companions who could not fast while he was with them. We 



no 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



remember sadly that he came to his own and his own received 
him not, but it probably would be a mistake to think of Jesus 
as habitually sorrowful. Deep were the sorrows of his life and 
deep were the sorrows of the world which he continually faced, 
but he endured the cross and despised the shame for the joy 
that was set before him, and he taught his disciples to love and 
labor that his joy might abide in them and that their joy might 
be full. So much of sorrow waited on his later ministry, that 
we shall do well to cherish the memory of every blessed joy 
which came to him during its progress. 




CHRIST AT THE DOOR — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



CHAPTER IX 



THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 

Soon after the wedding in Cana Jesus and his mother and 
the family visited Capernaum, where some of his disciples 
lived (John 2: 12), and there evidently did some teaching and 
performed some works of power, as these are later referred to 
in Nazareth as well known there (Luke 4: 23). But the visit 
to Capernaum was a short one, and from here, probably with- 
out returning to Nazareth, Jesus went to Jerusalem. It is the 
first recorded visit to the Holy City since he was twelve years 
of age. Meantime he had become a man, and a man with a 
mission. With what emotions did he now approach the sacred 
temple, the scene of his boyhood inspiration, and of his future 
activity! 

Jerusalem presents a beautiful sight to the visitor from Gali- 
lee. Enshrined in mountains, flanked by deep valleys, the hill 
of Zion rises picturesque, and visible afar. The high walls and 
massive gates make it appear impregnable, and the domes and 
turrets that lift themselves above the walls and outline their 
glittering shapes against the hills and the sky, show a city 
whose beauty can but exalt the imagination and quicken the 
weary step. 

According to the scheme of chronology which we are fol- 
lowing, the date of the passover which John mentions was 
April 11-17, A. D. 27. It is the official beginning of Christian- 
ity. It is marked by one public event of importance, the 
cleansing of the temple, and is notable as the occasion of 
Jesus' visit with Nicodemus. 

We do not know the thoughts of Jesus as he approached 
Jerusalem, after the interval of eighteen years. He remem- 
bered it as it had seemed in his boyhood. He remembered 
the wisdom and solemnity of the doctors, the impressive 

in 



112 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



apparel of the priests, the dignity and grandeur of the temple 
service. The real Jerusalem possessed all this, and much beside 
that was less pleasant to contemplate. It is more than once 
recorded that Jesus was astonished at conditions which con- 
fronted him in his ministry. It may well be that another 
instance of his astonishment meets us in this incident. With 
swift indignation, as though the awful sacrilege now first 
became fully apparent to him, Jesus beheld the desecration of 
his Father's house. 




MOUNT ZION 



He who approaches the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 
Jerusalem, finds the court in front thronged with peddlers of 
pearl crosses and rosaries, olive-wood souvenirs and cotton 
winding-sheets, the latter printed over with religious inscrip- 
tions, and carried in by the purchasers to fold against the 
Stone of Anointment, and be laid away for the purchaser's own 
entombment. It suggests at once, but does not equal, the 
scene in the outer courts of the temple in Jesus' day. Animals 
were there for sale to be offered in sacrifice, as people coming 
from distant parts had occasion to buy their cattle and sheep. 
The rental on the pens for these animals went to the priests. 
Doves were in great demand; the high priest Annas had a 



THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 



113 



large dove farm on the Mount of Olives, and himself dealt 
largely, through agents or employees, in this traffic. Then 
there were the money-changers. A man's gift might be more 
or less, but the temple tax was payable in the sacred shekel. 




YEMENITE JEWS IN JERUSALEM 



Jesus himself paid this tax in the Roman drachma, having no 
patience with the letter of a law that destroyed its spirit (Matt. 
17: 24-27). But legally, the tax was payable in the sacred 
coin, now rare, the shekel, or half-shekel, believed to have 
been coined by Simon the Maccabee. To change the various 
Roman or provincial coins for shekels was the business of the 
money-changers, whose stalls paid temple rentals. All this 
made the outer courts a noisy and profane place, where the 



H4 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, and the bargaining of 
customers and venders mingled boisterously; and worst of all 
was the spirit of greed cloaking itself under the form of 
religion. 

Jesus viewed all this with righteous indignation. Then he 
hastily gathered some cords from the floor, braided them into 
a whip, and drove the oxen and their masters before him, 
freed the doves, and overturned the tables of the money- 
changers. It was a bold thing to do, and safe because bold. 







■ ?§P^ "■--■*«* i""^5! 


i '4^^^^^ 


Vggj 


:\ ; 



THE DAMASCUS GATE, JERUSALEM 



The consciences of the evil-doers proved his allies, and the 
temple, for a brief period, was unpolluted by trade. Jesus had 
had his first battle with the forces of evil, and had prevailed. 

At this first passover in his ministry, Jesus attracted the 
attention and profound interest of one great man, by name 
Nicodemus, one of the chief teachers of Jerusalem. He came 
to Jesus by night, whether through fear or for the sake of 
quiet and uninterrupted converse we do' not know, and con- 
fessed at the outset his belief that Jesus had come from God. 

Jesus answered, "Ye must be born from above." 



THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 



115 



The Jews had a doctrine of regeneration, but it was essen- 
tially that of naturalization. A Gentile, coming as a proselyte, 
must be born anew. It implied that the proselyte had become 
dead to his former relationships, and had entered into new 
ones; his brother, his father, were no longer his next of kin, 
but his new brethren in the Jewish commonwealth. He had 
entered a "kingdom," and the relations of that "kingdom" 
were not merely political but personal and social. The term 




THE CITADEL OF ZION 



which Jesus so commonly used, "the kingdom of heaven" or 
"the kingdom of God," was not invented by him, but was in 
current use. Jesus and Nicodemus were both talking about 
"the kingdom of God;" they used the same language, but 
with very different meanings. So, too, they were both talk- 
ing of a new birth, and the language employed by Jesus was 
familiar to Nicodemus; yet he stumbled at the outset in his 
attempt to grasp the spiritual meaning of Jesus. It would not 
have surprised Nicodemus had Jesus told him that other men 



n6 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



must be born anew. Nicodemus could have had no thought 
that he had need of such regeneration. But Jesus applied 
the truth to Nicodemus, to the great bewilderment of the 
learned teacher. In the midst of a discourse, at once profound 
and simple, he announced the origin and purpose of his own 
mission in the world; in words that are in themselves an 
evangel: 




THE CLEANSING OE THE TEMPLE 
(REMBRANDT, 1606-1669) (FROM ORIGINAL ETCHING, 1635) 



"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but 
have eternal life" (John 3: 16). 

The need of regeneration is inherent in our complex nature. 
The child is born with rich spiritual capabilities, but they are 
all latent. Nothing is developed at the outset, save necessary 
bodily functions, and a few weak animal instincts. The little 
one, born of the flesh, and with mind enough to enable the flesh 



THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 



117 



to provide for its first simple and reasonable wants, must be 
born from above. 

One by one the higher qualities appear; each is a new birth. 
The love of beauty, the enjoyment of music, the response to 
parental affection — each is a new birth. 

We hear much misleading talk about our "sinful nature." 
The word "nature" as thus applied is most ambiguous. It is 
natural for a child to creep; it is just as natural for a man, 
having learned, to walk. But the ability to walk, to defy 




THE RAILWAY STATION, JERUSALEM 



gravitation and stand erect, is a birth from above. Scientists 
tell us that our erect position causes us many diseases of the 
heart, which is crowded to one side, and of the digestive 
organs, which are cramped and loaded with undue weight by 
our walking on two feet — in a word, that going on all-fours is 
natural to man. It may have been our nature once; it cer- 
tainly has been the nature of every child among us, but he who 
should now go on all-fours in manhood, merely because it is 
"natural," would abase himself. Much more do those abase 
themselves who apologize for slavery to passion because it is 



n8 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



"natural." There is a higher, even though an unborn, nature. 
When a little child I learned Dr. Watts' poem: 

Let dogs delight to bark and bite 

For God hath made them so; 
Let bears and lions growl and fight, 

For 'tis their nature to. 

But children, you should never let 

Your angry passions rise; 
Your little hands were never made 

To tear each other's eyes. 




A TEACHER OF ISRAEL 



Here is an argument based on the inherent spirituality of the 
child. The little one might say, "Why should 'bears and lions 
growl and fight,' and not I? It is my nature to, as well as 
theirs." Yes, and it is his nature not to.' He has another, a 
higher, nature. And if the child should say, "My little hands 
are well adapted to the tearing Q f eyes — I have tried it and 



THE WHIP OF SMALL CORDS 



119 



know," he may be answered in the rebuke of his own con- 
science, which is as real as his finger nails. 

The need of regeneration is inherent, and universal. Sin 
emphasizes the need, but did not create it. Every man has 
need to be born from above. First is the natural, then the 
spiritual. The spiritual self is as real as the physical self. But 




JESUS AND NICODEMUS — (UNKNOWN GERMAN ARTIST — OLD) 

as the physical body might have died unborn, so may also the 
spiritual life, and sometimes, alas, it does so. 

Jesus believed in the spirituality of man. The spiritual 
nature which man already has, is the unfertilized germ of the 
spiritual life to be. Quickened by the Spirit of God, made 
alive to its own powers and the world's true needs, the real 
man is born and from above. 




CHAPTER X 



JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 

The range of hills which forms the backbone of Palestine 
contains one remarkable gap, visible even from the Mediter- 
ranean. Seen from the vallev, Mounts Ebal and Gerizim 
appear like rounded cones, but they are really ridges, between 
which lies the valley of Shechem. No other spot in all Pales- 
tine is so fertile, well watered, or desirable for habitation. 
The two mountains run nearly east and west, and the valley 
at the narrowest point is hardly more than five hundred yards 
in width: Between the two mountains stands Nablous, whose 
name is corrupted from Neapolis, "the new city," and is the 
modern representative of Shechem. 

Shechem is thirty miles from Jerusalem on the south and 
the same distance from Csesarea on the north. It is sixteen 
miles from the Jordan and about the same distance from the 
sea. The low gap between the mountains is really the water 
shed, and from it in either direction flow the streams from its 
multitudinous springs, eastward to the Jordan and westward to 
the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of Nablous say that there 
are eighty springs within and around the city. The atmos- 
phere of the valley is humid as compared with the rest of 
Palestine, and the air acquires that quality lacking elsewhere 
in the Holy Land, in which distant objects assume soft out- 
lines and delicate tints. 

1 20 



JESUS AT' JACOB'S WELL 



121 



To this great gap in the hills Abraham had directed his steps 
and here camped by the oak of Moreh (Gen. 12:6, 7), and 
built an altar unto the Lord. Jacob pitched his tent to the 
east of the city and later purchased the ground from Hamor, 
ruler of the Hivites. Here he dug a well, and near it his son 
Joseph was buried. (Gen. 33: 18-20; Josh. 24:32; John 4:5, 
6, 12; Acts 7: 16.) 

In the fifth century before Christ occurred that break 
between the Jews and Samaritans which has lasted to the 






:«P* ^^8^ 




ENTRANCE TO JACOB S WELL 



present day. A young Jewish priest, Manasseh, had married the 
daughter of Sanballat, the Samaritan governor, and refused 
to leave her at the command of Nehemiah. Returning with 
his wife to Shechem he was received. by his father-in-law and 
installed as the high-priest of a national worship in which 
Jehovah was the only God and the five books of Moses the 
only law. A temple was built on the top of Mount Gerizim, 
already sacred with its associations, and there the Samaritan, 
people gathered annually and still gather to celebrate the 
feasts of the passover. Their Pentateuch contained at the 
end of the Ten Commandments a passage commanding wor- 



122 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

ship on Gerizim, and both they and the Jews contended earn- 
estly for their respective forms of worship each charging the 
other with corrupting the sacred text. The controversy was 
yet warm when Jesus sat on the well, and it is no nearer set- 
tlement to-day, though the number of the Samaritans has 
diminished to a community of about one hundred and sixty-five. 
They still worship God on their holy mountain and keep up 
their succession of high-priests, the present high-priests count- 
ing himself successor and signing himself as the son of Aaron.* 

The two great mountains define the valley and make plain 
the most immediate locations to it. It is thus that we are able 
to identify so closely the scenes of this journey of our Lord. 
Joseph's tomb is pointed out with a strong probability of gen- 
uineness, and Jacob's well is still there identified beyond a 
reasonable doubt. It is a deep circular well whose depth has 
varied at different times as it has been partly filled up, but it 
is probably not far from seventy-five feet deep. The curbstone 
is worn to grooves by the ropes that for ages have drawn water 
from the depths below. With a candle one may look down the 
whole distance to the water, and with a rope and water-jar 
one may still draw water as in the early days. The water is 
cool and fresh. I drank from it and found it good, and the 
traveler of to-day sitting for a little time where Jesus sat and 
drinking of the water that he drank, goes on with the words of 
the Saviour ringing in his memory: 

"Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but 
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become 
in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life" (John 

4: 13. 14)- 

It was in the winter of the year 28 that our Lord passed 

through Samaria. The month was probably December, for it 

lacked four months of harvest. His disciples went into the 

village close at hand, the village of Sychar, nearer to the 

well than Shechem, and now identified .as El-'Askar. It was 



*A discussion of the questions of the value of the Samaritan Pentateuch 
is contained in an extended article by the author in the Bibliotheca Sacra 
for October, 1903. 



JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 



123 



a small village then as compared with the somewhat populous 
city of Shechem, as it now is in comparison with Nablous. 
While Jesus sat on the well, weary and thirsty, a Samaritan 
woman came to draw water. Not many people came to the 
well in the middle of the day, for though it was winter, the 




CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA — (DORE, 1832-1883) 

sun was hot and burdens were carried, when possible, earlier or 
later in the day. There, however, the woman came, and Jesus 
talked with her. A request for water is the most common of 
all pleas for assistance in the East, and he would be counted 
most inhospitable who refused it even to an enemy, but so 
bitter was the feud between the Jews and Samaritans that the 
woman wondered at his asking for a drink. But the woman's 
readiness to help a stranger became the occasion of her receiv- 
ing a blessing for herself and her country. 



124 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

It is interesting to find that through the woman's wonder- 
ing testimony the whole village became interested in Jesus, 
and extended to him its hospitality. Perhaps the first group 
of converts abiding in a single place and sustaining communal 
relations to each other was in that Samaritan town. 

Here to this woman, and she a Samaritan and sinner, Jesus 
confided the truth of his Messianic authority, which even his 

** « ;. .; f S*>£l 3* C* ^ ^ 

THE FAMOUS PASSAGE FOLLOWING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS APPOINTING 

GERIZIM AS THE SANCTUARY — (FROM A SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH 

PURCHASED BY THE AUTHOR FROM THE PRIESTS OF 

SCHECHEM IN IOX>2. EXACT SIZE) 

apostles were to learn much later. Here under the shadow of 
the temple of a heretical religion he uttered profounder truths 
than yet the temple at Jerusalem had heard. Here, where 
Abraham first camped on his way from Ur of the Chaldees, 
and built his first altar, and offered his first sacrifice, Jesus 
revealed the fact that he was the gift of God, and the final 
sacrifice for the world. Here, where the body of Joseph was 
buried, he proclaimed himself as greater than the fathers, even 
the one of whom it had been written that his soul should not 



JESUS AT JACOB'S WELL 



125 



be left in the realm of the dead nor his flesh see corruption. 
Here, where the blessings and cursings had been read in that 
scene of unrivaled picturesqueness and solemnity, he came 
with the new Law whose blessings were for the salvation of all 
men. Here, where Jacob had dug his well, he discoursed on 
the water of life. Here, where stood the monument of the 
unhappy division between the Jews and their nearest neigh- 
bors and kinsmen, he uttered the prophecy of the universal 




JESUS AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN — ( REMBRANDT, 1606-1669) 



and spiritual worship of God. Here, where Samaritan worship 
was most strongly entrenched and prejudice deepest, he began 
his foreign missionary work with hopeful results and a promise 
of larger things. 

The revelation to the woman at the well grew first out of a 
real need on the part of Jesus. His request, "Give me to 
drink," was the expression of his own genuine thirst. It gives 
dignity to human life when we realize that God really needs 
us; that we are invited "to come up to the help of the Lord." 



126 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



But a deeper reason was the woman's need. Her response 
to the need of Christ was the condition, though unrealized, 
of her receiving the water of life. It is ever thus, and our 
willingness to serve becomes the reason of the blessings 
bestowed. Jesus needed the water; the Samaritans needed the 
water of life; and Jesus "must needs go through Samaria" 
that he might open a new and living fountain there. 




JACOB S WELL 



CHAPTER XI 



HE CAME TO HIS OWN 

Among the saddest words written about our Lord are those 
of John, "He came unto his own, and they that were his own 
received him not." The world was God's already. Jesus had 
valid claims upon the love and service of men. It was not an 
unnatural thing that he should have asked their affection in 
return for that love which he lavished upon mankind, or their 
service when he who was Lord of all lived among men as he 
that serveth. If mankind had been of the devil, and the process 
of salvation had been a violent wresting of men away from the 
original intent of their being, it would have been less strange. 
It would not then be a wholly surprising thing to know that 
he came to those who were Satan's and that they remained 
loyal to Satan. But the world was God's from the hour when 
God in loving self-abnegation poured his own life into the 
world; and men were Christ's own in the thought of God from 
the dawn of creation. 

We are intensely interested in this return of Jesus to his 
early home. This had been his first long absence from it, we 
may believe, since his early childhood. There are times when 
one truly comes to man's estate only by leaving home for a 
season. Many a man can remember the day on which he con- 
sciously grew out of boyhood, and it has been oftener than 
otherwise the day of his arrival among a new company of asso- 
ciates. Yesterday he was a lad at home among the people 
who had known him from his cradle. To his father he was still 
a little boy, and his mother still half thought of him as her 
baby. To the neighbors he was one of a group of lads, grow- 
ing fast, to be sure, but still a lad. To-day all this is changed. 
Away at school, in business, on a visit, he is thrown among a 
group of self-reliant young men, thinking for themselves, act- 

127 



128 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

ing without asking permission, and he comes into their privi- 
leges and methods as a matter of course, and the boy of yes- 
terday is the young man of to-day. 

This is not all. He has a new scale of measurement. He 
has a new gauge for his ambition. He is more of a man not 
only in the estimation of his fellows, but also in his own self- 
consciousness. His home-going is a very different thing from 
his departure. He left his home a lad; he returns a few months 
or even weeks later, and is more changed than those who see 
him realize. Of the quality and effect of that change, his 
home-going is the test. 

Who that thinks at all has failed to wonder that any young 
man ever aspires to be better or greater than the surroundings 
of his birth? What is that spirit which says in the soul of a 
young man who has never healed a disease, "I am a physician," 
or in one who has never preached a sermon, "I am called to 
the work of the ministry," or to one who has never pleaded a 
case, "I will be a lawyer?" Their fathers were farmers or vil- 
lage shopkeepers; how should their sons proclaim themselves 
professional men? How can they face their old neighbors with 
such preposterous claims? No wonder they go away from home 
to obtain their start in life; and, when they return with their 
professional titles, no wonder that the community waits, more 
than half skeptical, to see what, if anything, is to come of it all. 

It was in the power of the Spirit that Jesus returned. The 
Spirit's presence was no new experience to him, but the scope 
of the Spirit's power was enlarged by the enlargement of his 
own horizon. We are perhaps never quite sure of our ground 
when we attempt to interpret those spiritual experiences of 
our Lord that partly accord with our own and partly trans- 
cend them. But this we know, that the descent of the Spirit 
upon him at his baptism was not an objective fact alone, but 
that it made visible a real inward experience. And when, led 
of the Spirit, and sustained by the Spirit, he went into the 
wilderness, and there met temptation at short range and con- 
quered it, we may be sure that epoch marked in his own 
thought a real spiritual advance. We may not know how to 



HE CAME TO HIS OWN 



129 



interpret it; we may lack words to make it real to ourselves; 
but we ought to assure ourselves that the Jesus who returned 
to Nazareth was in his own consciousness a man of wider and 
deeper spiritual life than the Jesus who had left Nazareth to 
beo-in his ministry as a companion of John the Baptist and thus 




A PEASANT FAMILY OF PALESTINE 



to fulfil all righteousness. Returning, the significant change 
in his own relation to the world lay, as Jesus himself expressed 
it, in his larger possession of the Spirit. It was the truth 
which registered itself in his own consciousness; it is the theme 
of his address to his own people; it is the affirmation which the 
evangelist records. This was the thought of the Scripture 
passage read by him that morning from Isaiah, and it was the 
fulfilling of that Scripture promise that constituted his theme. 



I3 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 

It might help us to understand the Christ if we recalled 
oftener the Scripture statements of his possession of the Spirit. 
It was of the Spirit that he was begotten; in his growth from 
childhood, increasing in wisdom and in stature, the Spirit was 
his, and the grace of God was upon him; with that Spirit he 
was baptized, and the dove-like descent was the token of 
inward grace; in the progress of his ministry it became appar- 
ent that God gave not the Spirit to him by measure; and the 
Old Testament passages which pre-eminently he fulfilled are 
those which define .his glory as that derived from the trans- 
cendent possession of the Spirit of God. 

It is thus necessary to suppose that Jesus' own apprehension 
of the nature of his work among men had developed during 
this absence. Certainly he seemed changed to his neighbors. 
He had sat in the synagogue all through his boyhood, had 
attended school there, no doubt, and there had heard on Sab- 
bath days and there had learned to read on other days, the 
words of the law to which this day he listened as another read. 
When the reading of the prophets was due, he no longer sat, 
but rose and offered to conduct that portion of the service, 
and afterward to speak. It was a new thing for him to do, and 
it did not pass unnoticed. 

But it was no new thing for him to be at the service of God's 
house. He went to the synagogue "as his custom was." Even 
to the Saviour there was power in godly habit. Few rela- 
tively of our acts are undertaken with a process of conscious 
and independent reasoning. Much of what we do is done 
under the momentum of habit. Blessed is he whose habits 
are those which conduce to worship and to instruction m 
righteousness. 

At least seven persons, as a rule, participated in the succes- 
sive reading of portions of the Scriptures in the services of the 
Jewish synagogue. Frequently strangers were invited to 
speak.* Any man of good standing in the community and 
of good repute for learning and piety might be called upon or 
might volunteer to address the congregation. Whether the 

*As in Acts 13 : 15. 



HE CAME TO HIS OWN 



131 



Scripture for this day was one assigned, or whether Jesus 
selected the passage which he desired, is a question about 
which scholars have different opinions. But it was a singu- 
larly felicitous passage, a word from the second group of 
prophecies included under the name Isaiah, the great, hopeful, 
illuminating book which prepared the expatriated nation for a 
return to its own land. It was to proclaim the set time of 




EMINENT MEN OF PALESTINE 



God's deliverance that the words had been spoken and 
recorded; and it was a larger fulfilment of the hope of deliv- 
erance which Jesus taught. 

All such prophecies had their nearer fulfilment. All of them 
had initial reference to some event in the prophet's own life- 
time or a time not then remote. But the grandest of Old 
Testament prophecies overflow the narrow banks of local ful- 
filment, and move on, deep and wide and majestic — so deep 
and wide that at times the narrow bed of the original mean- 
ing is utterly lost to sight— over the broad flood-plain of their 
larger Messianic hope to meet the incoming tidal revelation 



I3 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

of God's redemptive love in Jesus Christ. It is always a help 
when we are able to discern the breadth and direction of the 
prophet's initial meaning; but it is a sad limitation of our priv- 
ilege in Christ if we confine our exploration to the tortuous 
channel of the prophet's personal vision, and fail to make our 
own the swelling stream of the gospel's majestic overflow 
where floats securely the ark of God with the rainbow of eter- 
nal hope above it. 

Jesus did not wait for the challenge that was sure to come. 
His old friends were there, full of curiosity, which varied from 
a languid interest in the message itself to a skeptical and hos- 
tile cynicism. He uttered for his hearers the stinging proverb 
with which they were ready to taunt him. Already he saw 
their rising opposition. It was another temptation to turn 
stones to bread, and to use his power to secure the favor of his 
old friends. Above that temptation, though his own brethren 
and late employers were the tempters, Jesus rose with dignity 
and decision. And the refusal unmasked in an instant the bit- 
terness and scorn which curiosity had dissembled. 

The effect was instantaneous. They no longer wondered at 
the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. They 
no longer judged the Messenger by his message, or gave pre- 
tense of a courteous hearing to a new gospel. He had done a 
few mighty works in Nazareth; he had laid his hand on a few 
sick folk and they had been healed. But he could do little — 
here is the inability of omnipotence — because of their lack of 
faith. He was not even a carpenter to his neighbors now. He 
was the disappointed promise of a free entertainment, and 
they scorned him. So Jesus was rejected because he refused to 
use his divine power for purposes of entertainment, and to 
satisfy a morbid curiosity. 

The Greeks stumbled through their philosophy, but not 
more so than the Jews through their seeking of a sign. The 
supernatural has its dangers to faith. No part of the life of 
Jesus bears more eloquent testimony to his divinity than the 
testraint which he put upon it in the manifestation of the 
supernatural. The times have not yet passed when people 



HE CAME TO HIS OWN 



133 



turn their backs upon the church in quest of a gospel which, 
denying matter, uses its quasi philosophy for ends distinctly 
material; nor are Christians above temptation to make perfect 
in the flesh that which is begun in the Spirit. 

What a message it was to which Nazareth stopped its ears 
that day! It was a message that had in it no promise of loaves 
and fishes, no offer of free miracles on demand, no present 




PALESTINE STREET SCENE 



relief from the sickness and care of earthly life. Signs of his 
supernatural power would have come with faith, but they 
were distinctly not promised as a result of it. But it was a 
message of good news for the poor, healing for the broken- 
hearted, liberty for those in bondage to sin, vision for the spir- 
itually blind, help for the bruised, comfort for the sorrowing, 
?n.<± the assurance that God's good time was at hand. And 
Nazareth rejected that gospel and its Messenger, because the 
Lord of glory refused to work miracles for free entertainment 
and for local self-gratulation. 



I3 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Jesus wondered at it. Let us not in our timidity explain 
away the precious truths of our Lord's humanity. The Scrip- 
tures assure us that it was a sad surprise to him. He had 
started back home with enthusiasm. He knew the personal 
needs of the men to whom he was going-. He went with love 
and expectancy. But the day or days that intervened between 
his return and this Sabbath had chilled his hope and rendered 
impotent the divine effort for their relief. It was Jesus' first 
bitter disappointment, and it drove him out, homeless and dis- 
owned, a man without earthly kindred or an earthly home. It 
was a part of his bitter cup to know the keenness of disap- 
pointment. He, with all earth's benefactors, knew the mean- 
ing of Kipling's lines: 

And when your goal is nearest, 

The end for others sought, 
Watch sloth and heathen folly 

Bring all your hopes to naught! 

Sadly, indignantly, pitifully, the homeless Saviour turned 
away from his own people, marveling at their unbelief, and 
learning the lesson of disappointment which had its part in 
making the Captain of our Salvation perfect through suffering. 

It would not be so bad if all this were a bit of ancient his- 
tory. But, alas! to this day the sinless and sin-forgiving 
Saviour comes to his own, and they that are his own receive 
him not. This day, more than in that day when Jesus preached 
at Nazareth, is fulfilled in our ears every gracious Scripture 
which tells of the benefits of his salvation. The poor, the 
broken-hearted, the captive, the blind and the bondman, 
rejoicing still in his salvation, testify to his comfort and 
vision and freedom and hope. Alas for the man who is Christ's 
own — his kinsman, his brother, a child of his own Father, yet 
a strange and unfilial child, who turns him away. For, to as 
many as receive him, to them gives he the right to be called, 
in a new and more blessed sense, the children of God, even to 
those that believe on his name. 



CHAPTER XII 



THE HEALING CHRIST 

Though rejected at Nazareth, and living for a time in 
obscurity, Jesus was welcomed by many of his country- 
men who had been much impressed with his teaching and his 
unrecorded works at Jerusalem (John 4:43-45). Jesus now 
remained in Galilee from about the first of January until near 
the end of March. Of these three months we have hardly any 
clear information. It is possible that he lived unobtrusively 
in Nazareth, attracting no particular attention. The only time 
we hear of him, however, he is at Cana (John 4:47), and it is 
not certain that Mary and her family were not residing there, 
and Jesus with them. 

We come thus to the close of the first year of Jesus' public 
ministry. It began with his baptism in January, 27, and his 
public introduction to his work in Jerusalem in the March fol- 
lowing. We know almost nothing of his Judsean ministry from 
March to December, and practically nothing of his Galilsean 
ministry from January to March, save one incident which we 
are about to consider. This was the year of obscurity in the 
public life of Jesus, and but for the Gospel of John we should 
know as little of it as of the hidden years in Nazareth. 

This first year of teaching closed with a miracle of healing. 
A nobleman from Capernaum sent word to Jesus that his son 
was sick. With great reluctance Jesus entered upon that 
course which was certain to make his ministry conspicuously 
one of miracle working. He knew that once begun there was 
no stopping, and that the demand for miracles would increase 
until it ceased to be the cry of need and became the demand 
of irreverent curiosity. "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye 
will in no wise believe," said Jesus; but the nobleman cried, 
"Sir, come down ere my child die." The tender heart of Jesus 

135 



136 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

was melted by the father's entreaty. "Go thy way," said he, 
"thy son liveth" (John 4: 46-54). 

We are told that this was Jesus' second miracle at Cana. It 
was very different from the first one. It was a type, however, 
of the miracles that followed. From this time on Jesus became 
not only the teacher, but the healer of men. The prominence 
given thenceforward to miracles of healing justifies our paus- 
ing at the outset to consider the work of Christ in its relation 
to health both then and now. 

Jesus had no fondness for being known merely as a worker 
of miracles.* He preferred to attest his power and truth by 
moral and spiritual evidences rather than by those which bred 
in the people a desire for the unusual. That such a desire 
speedily grows abnormal, he well knew, and to that fact his 
experience adds new evidence. More than once he manifested 
great reluctance to work miracles, and repeatedly he forbade 
the knowledge that he had done so to be published. The 
supernatural was the resort of every charlatan and fraud; Jesus 
made his appeal to the heart and conscience. Jesus was reluc- 
tant to have men think it their duty to believe because of his 
power to reward or punish them; he would have them believe 
because of their love of truth and goodness. He shrank from 
seeming to bribe them to be good by means of his miracles, 
and preferred that men should hear his truth, and see his life, 
and believe in God who had sent him. 

The final test of truth can never be the apparent attestation 
of what appears to be the supernatural. The last appeal is 
ever to the reason and the conscience of men. Far back in the 
Old Testament times men were warned against following a 
new religion simply because it was accompanied by signs and 
wonders: 

"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, 
and he give thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the won- 
der come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us 
go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us 
serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that 



*A portion of this chapter is condensed from my book "Faith as Re- 
lated to Health." 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



137 



prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God 
proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God 
with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after 
the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his command- 
ments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave 
unto him" (Deut. 13: 1-4). 

If we were forever committing- our faith to that which comes 
to us with an air of mystery, we should have before us a per- 




CHRIST HEALING THE SICK 
(REMBRANDT, 1606-1669) 

(from THE FAMOUS "hundred GUILDER etching") 

petual phantom chase. Even though signs and wonders be 
shown, even though prophecies are made and fulfilled, the 
final test is the value of the revelation to the lives of men. 
If a man is tied with ropes and shut into a cabinet and the 
lights are turned clown, and strange things occur, the final 
question is not whether I can explain his loosening of the 
knots, but whether the revelation made in the dark is of real 
value to the assembled audience. If a pencil is put within a 
folded slate, and later writing is found within, the final ques- 
tion is not whether I can explain the means by which the writ- 



1 38 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

ing has been accomplished, but whether the alleged revelation 
has really added to the sum of human knowledge. If a man 
establishes a new religion and works cures, it is not necessary 
to prove that all who are alleged to have been helped by him 
grow sick again, but only to inquire whether any new principle 
has been discovered which makes for the permanent advan- 
tage of men and women. Between the false and the true, the 
pretender and the real bearer of a message from God, we must 
discern, not by a comparison of wonders which make the curi- 
ous gaze, but by evidences of sincerity, unselfishness and good- 
ness. The working of cures can never attest as divine an 
alleged revelation accompanied by vulgarity, cupidity and 
pretense. 

Besides being a most uncertain proof of the divinity of the 
faith which it proclaims, the supernatural, so called, has other 
serious disadvantages. It tends to disturb faith in the good- 
ness of the established order of things. It sets us to looking 
for God in his unusual manifestations, and to ignoring an 
"earth crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire 
with God." It discounts God's habitual methods, and 
enhances unduly those which are exceptional. It tends to 
divert men's minds from the real essence of the divine revela- 
tion, and to fix their attention upon the accessories thereof. 
It creates a morbid craving for more of the mysterious, and so 
forever stimulates what it cannot satisfy, an appetite for the 
marvelous and the abnormal. It creates new and false tests 
of truth, and refuses to accept truth except as it becomes 
more or less mysterious and unnatural. It sets a wicked and 
adulterous generation to seeking signs and wonders, whi ;h 
seeking they substitute for a search after righteousness. 

"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe," said 
Jesus reproachfully. What was even worse, they would not 
believe after they had seen them, as he himself knew. "If they 
believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe 
though one rose from the dead." The miraculous as a means 
of conversion was a conspicuous failure in Christ's day. He 
did not rely upon it. He rebuked the craving for it. He 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



139 



taught men to believe in truth and goodness, and not to 
demand those exhibitions which in false teachers so readily 
become mere feats of fortune-telling and legerdemain. It is 
better for a man to believe through a miracle than not to 
believe at all; but "Blessed are those who have not seen, and 
vet have believed." Blessed are those to whom God is real, 
not in the unusual only, but in all the normal exhibitions of 
his righteous and inviolable laws. 

I have great patience with men who find it difficult to believe 
in miracles. In so far as Christianity has miracles, they are a 
means to an end, which end is faith in Christ. If that end be 
attained without them, the miracles need impose no added 
burden. The moment they impede faith, they may be allowed 
to stand aside for the help of those to whom they are of real 
assistance, while those souls that do not find help in them, 
find God through such agencies as he uses for their assist- 
ance and enlightenment. The man who derives no help 
from miracles will not, if he is wise, deny them; to other souls 
they have their meaning. But he need not wait to find God 
through the means which Christ counted of lesser importance, 
if God has made himself plain through means that appeal to 
him as more truly spiritual. 

Miracles have still their evidential value to us, and to the 
greatest of them, the resurrection of Christ, Christianity itself 
affords nineteen centuries of unbroken testimony. This is the 
only miracle which the modern Christian need trouble himself 
to prove. So far as the others are important, they follow read- 
ily from this. Some miracles were less important than others 
when they were wrought, and some had a greater impressive- 
ness and value to their own age than they can possibly have 
to a later time. He who believes that Jesus Christ rose again 
from the dead, and that he lives still in the life of heaven and 
of the world, need not trouble himself because some of the 
other miracles give him difficulty. Nevertheless, one has only 
to compare the miracles recorded of Christ with the apocry- 
phal miracles and the alleged miracles of other religions, to be 
struck at once with the contrast. The miracles of Christ form 



1 4 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 

a cycle attesting- his power over natural and spiritual forces. 
They are full of dignity and majesty and strength. They 
appeal not to men's love of the marvelous, but to their spirit- 
ual nature. They exhibit a sympathy and a self-control which 
are the perfection of the human and the divine. They are free 
from all ostentation and pretense. They are free from all tim- 
idity on the one hand, and from all striving after effect on the 
other. They are free from all appeal to superstition and from 
self-advertising. They are free from all grotesqueness and 
from all pandering to vulgar curiosity. They are full of a 
grace which belongs to no other prophet or religious teacher. 
They are full of a conscious power which never shrank from 
the extremity of human need, and never exceeded by any 
effort at display the occasion which evoked them. They are 
simple, beautiful and convincing. They were done in the day- 
light. Their motive was transparent, and their result was 
immediate and easily tangible to the senses. They are ever for 
moral or spiritual ends, and exhibit beautifully and helpfully 
the power of God in its various moral relations. They are 
appropriate, masterful, and worthy of the Son of God. 

It is the regular method of the imposter to make his claim 
at the outset, and work his wonders to prove it. Christ 
wrought very differently. He began by preaching the good 
tidings of the approach of the kingdom of God, veiling his 
power, keeping it in the background, using it sparingly, often 
reluctantly, and only when there was special occasion. 

Still, he who claimed to be the Son of God must give reason- 
able evidence, not only of goodness, but of power, and of that 
power manifest for moral ends. So Jesus wrought from time 
to time such works as were necessary to impress his own age 
with a conviction that he had come from God. He proved 
that he had power over nature, power over sickness and sin 
and all the forces of evil, and power over the hearts and lives 
of men. Largely his miracles were works of healing, for of 
such there was pressing need. Tt may be that a mere arithmet- 
ical comparison does not give us in right proportion his own 
thought of the legitimate objects for display of divine power. 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



141 



It may be that he would have preferred a larger proportion of 
other manifestations of the divine nature. He could not escape 
from men's infirmities, and so he healed and comforted. But 
his first miracle was wrought to add to human pleasure (John 
2: 1-11); the one miracle recorded by all four evangelists was 




christ raising the daughter of jairus 
(gustav richter, 1823-1884) 

not of healing but of feeding (Matt. 14: 19, 20; Mark 6: 35- 
44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:5-13); the miracle by which he 
brought his disciples to him, and by which he defined their 
future work as his followers, was to profit them in their regular 
method of getting a living (Luke 5: i-n); and the only one by 
which in part he sought to help himself, was wrought to pay 
the tax collector (Matt. 17:24-27). God's power is for life's 



I 4 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

normal functions, and not wholly for its remedial necessities. 
It is entirely possible, therefore, that our study of Christ's 
miracles has led us to think too much, relatively, of those of 
healing, because of their numerical preponderance. We may 
err in supposing God's work to be remedial rather than con- 
structive. It may be that in God's thought the remedial is t^ie 
incidental, and the constructive is the essential in the mission 
of Christ. It may well be that the mission of Christ to men con- 
cerns, more definitely than we sometimes think, their accus- 
tomed vocations, their daily problems, and even their normal 
recreations and pleasures. 

But Christ was constantly pressed upon by the world's neces- 
sities. The unending groan of pain, that from the dawn of 
history has been wrung from the heart of this sad earth, 
smote ever on his sympathetic ear. What works he might 
have wrought in a world with less stern necessities, we may 
perhaps debate, but it was a world of pain and sorrow, a world 
with little skill in healing, a world with great ignorance of the 
laws of health, into which he came. He went about doing 
good, and he did the good that was most needed, whether its 
specific form best represented his mission or not. When the 
leper cried, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," 
he did not stop to ask whether he was healing lepers out of 
proportion to their number — he healed the man before Mm. 
So, teaching and healing, he lived his wonderful life. Men's 
bodily needs and men's spiritual needs, he met them both. 
Upon his own loving, generous heart he took the burden of 
the world's sickness and sin. "Himself took our infirmities, 
and bare our sicknesses." 

The question may be asked by some reader whether God 
still works cures in answer to prayer; and if so, how, among 
many systems claiming to work cures, we may know which 
is truly from God. In another book I have attempted to answer 
this question more fully than is possible here. But I may say 
that I believe God still hears and answers prayer, for our 
bodies and for our souls. 

But, if by answering our prayers God intended to do what- 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



H3 



ever we think we want, we should never dare to pray. These 
bodies of ours are not constructed for immortality, nor is this 
world God's best. Every man and woman of us, save the few 
who are to live till life becomes a burden, and those to be 
overtaken by sudden death, will one day face death with long- 
ings for life, and prayers that God will raise us up. We ought 
so- to pray. We have no right to want to die while we are able 
to live and help the world. We shall pray to live, and in so 
praying we shall do our duty. But in God's good time, he will 
hear that prayer, and will answer it by taking us to the life 
everlasting and to larger service. 

There is more divine healing than at first we recognize as 
such. All healing is divine. We wrongly restrict the mean- 
ing when we apply it only to those cures which proceed from 
immediate religious influence. Every cure is an answer to 
prayer, prayer that in many cases has been wrung from the 
heart of sobbing centuries, and whose answer is revealed in 
some new method of saving life. 

Let me suppose two cases of men equally sick, and both 
beyond present human help. In the one case Christian men, 
uniting their prayers and faith, surround the bed, and pray for 
recovery, and recovery comes. They do not see that human 
means have availed, save those consequent upon prayer. Let 
them be thankful, and believe that their prayer has been 
answered. Still the case remains an isolated one, remarkable 
and accounted divine just because it is unusual. In the other 
case, after centuries of effort and pain, and the unwearied toil 
of generations of physicians, some of whom prayed and some 
of whom did not, a remedy is found, which saves that man's 
life not only, but remains a permanent addition to human 
knowledge, a truth whose benefits are to accrue to all genera- 
tions. Perhaps the last man who made the discovery did not 
pray at all; perhaps the first man saved had no faith in prayer. 
Nevertheless, I say that if one and only one of those cases is 
to be accounted divine healing, the one better deserves the 
name which represents the discovery of a permanent divine 
truth. I do not choose between them. I count them both 



I44 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

divine, but if I had to choose the one or the other, I should 
choose the one which stands for the larger human gain, 
the one which has come as the result of both prayer and effort, 
and which abides as the answer to a thousand prayers yet to be 
offered. 

We cannot afford from our discovery or half-disco very of 
natural laws, to deduct a false philosophy that rules out God. 
God lives and reigns, and generation by generation men are 
learning better by what methods to become workers with him. 

Through the skill and the blunders of the physicians, 
through the prayers and the toil of friends, through the heart- 
breaking disappointments and the glad rejoicings, we are 
learning better God's ways of restoring health. This is from 
God. 

Through much pain and great needless suffering, we are 
coming to a better knowledge of the laws by which health may 
be maintained. Cures are from God, much more so that 
soundness of health, that wholeness of body, which needs no 
healing. 

The average of human life grows steadily. The thoughts 
and purposes of men grow large. So moves the world toward 
its larger and better future, and God lives more in the life of 
men. This is the source of health, of wholeness, of holiness, 
and these all are from the same root. Trusting in him, we 
shall find strength for life's inevitable sorrows. Trusting in 
him we shall find strength sufficient for sickness and for health, 
for life and for death, for earth and for heaven; and through 
that trust we shall find health and wholeness for our bodies 
and our spirits which are his. 

Jesus was right in judging that the working of such a mir- 
acle as the healing of the nobleman's son would advertise 
widely his power as a healer. In his first circuit of Galilee, he 
healed a leper (Matt. 8: 2; Mark 1: 40; Luke 5: 13).. The 
leper had heard of him and believed in, his power. "Lord, if 
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." How could Jesus resist 
such an appeal? 

Pitiable indeed, was the condition of the victim of this ter- 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



145 



rible disease. Doomed to banishment from home, to weary 
wanderings, to be shunned of all men, and finally to die, alone 
and unwept — no fate could possibly be more sad than this. 
The leper had heard of Jesus in some way; had probably 
learned of the healing of the nobleman's son, and had come 
to believe that he who could free the spirit of man from the 
power of evil spirits, could free the body from the most ter- 
rible disease. At first the thought may have been a mere ques- 
tion, growing into a conjecture, and this into a belief, at length 
intensified into a living faith in the power of Christ. 




A GROUP OF PALESTINE LEPERS 



So far as we know, this was the first human acknowledgment 
of the divine power of Jesus, excepting the testimony of John 
the Baptist "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
sin of the world;" and the confession of Nicodemus, "Rabbi, 
we know that thou art a teacher come from God." But one of 
these men was the appointed forerunner of Christ, and the 
other was "the teacher of Israel," and this man who professed 
equal faith, was a leper and an outcast. 

"If thou wilt," said the leper. How improbable it seemed 
that the great high-priest would come near one so vile. Well 
the leper remembered the last time he had seen a priest of 



146 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

God. There had begun to be a suspicion among his neighbors 
that he showed the signs of incipient leprosy; he denied the 
imputation at first, indignantly, then less confidently, and at 
length fearfully, desperately, as the evidence of the disease 
grew more terribly strong. At last, he was openly charged 
with leprosy and brought before the priest. Shut up for seven 
days, he emerged from his prison with the fatal scab more 
extended, and was officially pronounced unclean, and sen- 
tenced from that time forth, so long as he should live, by one 
who was at once the legal magistrate and the divine oracle, 
to rend his garment, and with bare head and covered lips, to 
dwell without the city, crying to all who might pass his way, 
"Unclean! unclean! unclean!" From that da}^, he had gone 
forth a wanderer upon the earth, branded as indubitably as 
Cain with what was supposed to be the mark of his sin; 
shunned of all men, and especially of good men. Would Jesus 
look at him? The more he heard of the power of Jesus, the 
more certain it seemed that he had come from God, The 
more terrible his own condition became, the greater seemed 
the distance between Christ and himself. How should he 
approach him? It was against the law for him to salute any 
man by the way. What could he say to Christ which would 
make him pity his deplorable condition, and not turn away 
in disgust from his loathsomeness? These were hard questions. 
The risk, however, was not great, for life admitted no possibil- 
ity much worse than he was experiencing. Though the 
attempt was illegal, and success very uncertain, he came kneel- 
ing, beseeching, and professing his faith. "If thou wilt, thou 
canst," he said. "I will," replied the kind voice of the Master, 
"Be thou made clean." Christ's willingness was established and 
so was his power. Many lepers afterward came to him, and all 
were cleansed; singly, in pairs, in groups of ten he healed them. 
This man he not only healed, but touched. How gracious was 
the touch, and how full of power! 

Soon after his removal to Capernaum, another notable case 
of healing occurred. A paralytic, carried by four friends, was 
brought to the house where he was preaching, and when the 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



H7 



crowd prevented their coming to him, they ascended the flat 
roof, and removing some of the tiles, let the sick man down 
at his feet (Matt. 9: 1-8; Mark 2: 1-12; Luke 5: 17-26). "And 
Jesus seeing their faith saith unto the sick of the palsy, Son, 
thy sins are forgiven thee." 

Who said anything about sins? It was paralysis that ailed 




JESUS AND THE PARALYTIC 

the man, and that was what brought him to Jesus. The scribes 
and Pharisees thought it presumptuous for Jesus to talk about 
forgiving sins, and the sick man's friends may well have con- 
fessed to a feeling of disappointment. He had sins, 01 course, 
but these were not what had given his friends concern. If they 
could only get him so that he could work for his living, he 
might consider his sins later, and repent of them when times 



148 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

were better, or after he had had opportunity to think about 
something beside his physical ills. This may have been what 
his friends thought about it, and the man himself may have 
had some such feelings. Certainly a feeling akin to this under- 
lies a good deal of the philosophy of a certain type of modern 
benevolence. It says, "Do not preach to men who are hun- 
gry; give them something to eat. Do not trouble men with 
theology, but work for the eight-hour law. One world at a 
time is enough; leave God and heaven until we know more 
about them, and give your energies to solving the bread-and- 
butter problem, and the needs which press upon men and 
women with long hours and small wages. It is their sickness 
and their hunger which should concern you. They have sins 
enough in all conscience, but it will be time enough to talk 
about them when men are better fed and clothed and housed." 

The Church is not to any great extent an employer of 
labor, or a producer of material wealth. It possesses few 
opportunities of securing employment for men, or of raising 
their wages, or of assisting them to market their commodities. 
Its kingdom is not of this world. Wherefore, there are many 
who say: "What is the Church good for, and why should we 
go to church at all?" There are thousands of men who are 
perfectly willing to go to church if the church will distribute 
soup tickets, but who will pass its doors in open and avowed 
contempt if the church have nothing to offer them but the 
forgiveness of sins and joys of honest living. There are people 
to-day who want bodily healing, but who care little for spiritual 
grace; who are very willing to be fed, but who do not hunger 
and thirst after righteousness. 

Let us not judge these men too harshly. There are many 
of them who bear heavy burdens in life, and who seek for some 
sort of sympathy and help in the midst of life's troubles and 
cares. Though they seek never so selfishly and unwisely, how 
shall the Church of Christ deny them the comfort of genuine 
sympathy that surely is their right and our duty? Jesus did 
little to ameliorate the conditions of his own day and time. It 
was a poverty-stricken country to which he came, and he left 



THE HEALING CHRIST 149 

it still groaning because of the sterility of the soil and the 
meagerness of the harvest, the burden of excessive and unjust 
taxation, and the three-fold curse of poverty and disease and 
dirt. He inaugurated no movement to raise men's wages or 
shorten their hours, and he left no infallible cure for human 
disease and suffering, but he never withheld from men a genu- 
ine sympathy that seemed so full of hope. The sisters of Laz- 
arus rejoiced at his coming even when they looked for no resur- 
rection of their brother. His presence meant good to them. 
His sympathy would not fail them. Of this, his companion- 
ship and his help, they were always sure. 

But these were not the best of the blessings that Christ 
brought to men. Ah, poor sufferer, weighed down with the 
infirmities of years, there is one thing you need more than 
bodily healing. Ah, friends, who have borne your companion 
to the housetop, and let him down at the feet of Christ, it is 
not his body that needs first aid! The restoring he needs and 
shall also have, and the words of the Saviour shall not fail com- 
manding him to take up his bed and walk, but the greater 
blessing is that first bestowed of pardoned sins, and of a con- 
science at peace with God! 

The men had faith; both the paralytic and the four who 
brought him. It was not a faith that the man would be for- 
given, but faith that Jesus would do something to help him; 
faith that he would go home the better for his coming; in that 
they were not disappointed. It was a fragmentary faith; an 
imperfect faith which fell far short of reaching the full willing- 
ness of Christ to help. It was a faith that had a reward in 
excess of what it was seeking. It is often so. Not wholly 
is God restricted by the limitations of our own faith. Faith in 
Christ is not confined to faith that he is about to do a specific 
thing for us. There is a power in him, and grace with him 
for an excessive reward to those who trust him. 

Not always does a man get what he goes out after. Men 
who have succeeded in that which they have most desired, 
sometimes tell us that a man can accomplish anything which 
he really sets his heart upon; but life is full of examples to illus- 



150 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

trate the truth that some things most earnestly sought are 
never attained. Many a man struggles on with his bodily 
infirmity and the limitations of his environment, to whom, 
nevertheless, is offered the larger gift. It is a mistake to 
assume that Jesus will always say, "Rise up and walk," but he 
will always say to the penitent believer, "Thy sins are for- 
given." Many a Christian carries through life, as Paul did, 
a body weakened by incurable disease. 

It is something that religion makes people agreeable 
and good neighbors; and a religion which does this and noth- 
ing more, is not to be despised. If Christianity did no other 
thing than to establish a day in the week on which by com- 
mon consent those who profess it should put on clean linen, 
it would be sufficient to justify the Christian faith; but no man 
has received all that God has ready for him who has only come 
to realize the benefits of an occasional change of raiment. 
Deeper than this must the real change be, if God does his best 
work for men. Faith in Christ still has its excessive reward. 

Later in the summer Jesus found and rewarded another 
instance of faith, that of the centurion, whose faith he declared 
greater than he had found in Israel. 

Thus early in the ministry of Jesus did he give to the world 
a token of his regard for all nations, and a promise of the 
extension of his kingdom among all men. Returning from 
the mount on which he had preached his great sermon, Jesus 
was met by a deputation of the leading men of Capernaum, 
beseeching him for the relief of this centurion's servant. Jesus 
had healed Jews; would he heal a Gentile? Those who came 
to Jesus evidently believed that their faith was or might be 
necessary to make up for the lack of the faith of the centurion. 
They took pains to assure Jesus that he was personally worthy, 
but the very need of the explanation as they made it showed 
that there was a doubt in their minds as to his being up to the 
standard of faith as required by Jesus. But as Jesus was going, 
the centurion sent, saying, "Speak the word, and my servant 
shall be healed." 

It was an eminently practical, business-like, soldierly sug- 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



151 



gestion. It was so practical that it must have shocked those 
who heard it a little. Jesus marveled at the centurion's faith. 
He had not always when present been able to do mighty works 
among the Jews because of their unbelief. Here was a heathen 
who had so much more faith that he could bless him at a dis- 
tance. It was greater faith than he had ever found in Israel. 




the daughter of jairus 
— (hofmann, 1824 — ) 

The true followers of Jesus were not limited to those who 
accompanied him in his journeyings. There must have been 
a considerable number who remained at home and quietly bore 
their testimony for him. The healed demoniac was not allowed 
to follow him, but was sent to his own home to tell what great 
things the Lord had done for him. Zacchseus in Jericho, Laz- 
arus in Bethany, and many more into whose homes he had 



152 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

come, must have remained loyal to him. The owner of the 
ass on which he rode to Jerusalem, the host in whose upper 
room they ate the passover, like Nicodemus and Joseph of 
Arimathgea, were among his sincere disciples. Besides these 
there must have been many who clung to their old forms of 
worship, for as yet there had been no break between Christian- 
ity and Judaism, but sincerely believed on him, and a number 
not smaller, who were somewhat perplexed by conflicting opin- 
ions, and bewildered by their previous expectations of the 
Messiah, who had, nevertheless, heard him gladly, and needed 
only further instruction to bring them to Christ. The Church 
visible has never been conterminous with the Church invisible. 
In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 
ness, however perplexed with distracting doubts, or confused 
by erroneous teaching, has been and is accepted with him. 

This centurion laid no claim to faith. He was not a Jew; he 
had never received the rite of circumcision; he did not keep 
the ceremonial law; he was a heathen. He had, however, dis- 
tinguished himself by his favorable attitude toward the Jews. 
Stationed with his company of troops near Capernaum, he had 
noted the favorable contrast between Judaism and heathenism, 
and while not professing conversion to Judaism, had been the 
largest contributor to, if not the sole donor of, the chief syna- 
gogue of the place — a structure whose ruins, if they could be 
identified with those of Tell Hum, would show that the gift 
was by no means a small one. The ruins may serve the same 
purpose, however, for it is quite unlikely that Capernaum's 
synagogue, erected by such a patron, was at all inferior to 
those of the neighboring towns. 

It is significant that of centurions, of whom the Jews could 
not think even such an one worthy except by stress of need 
to receive a blessing from the Jewish Messiah, no less than 
three are conspicuous for their connection with the early 
Church — this centurion of Capernaum, the centurion of the 
crucifixion, and Cornelius of Csesarea. 'And Jesus prophesied 
that many should come from unexpected quarters to sit down 
with the Jewish patriarchs in the kingdom of God. 



THE HEALING CHRIST 



153 



Another notable work was wrought by Jesus that summer 
in the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the syna- 
gogue (Matt. 9: 18-26; Mark 5: 21-43; Luke 8: 41-56). On 
the way to the house of Jairus he healed the poor woman who 
touched the hem of his garment. Jesus was always doing good 
by the way, and amid the throng and press of that day he 




RUINS OF THE SYNAGOGUE AT TELL HUM 

noticed the woman who found healing in the furtive touch of 
faith. Passing on, Jesus brought joy to the house of Jairus. 
I never recall that scene, or look at Hofmann's picture without 
emotion, remembering one dark day when by accident I 
opened to it in a child's book of Bible stories with the words 
underneath, that were the echo of my own heart's cry, "My 
little daughter is at the point of death: I pray thee, that thou 
come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be made whole, 
and live." It was an unspeakable comfort to remember that 



154 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



he came. So, also, he came to us in our need, and still comes 
to many an anxious bedside. 

At the same time, and apparently on the same day, Jesus 
healed two blind men, and afterward a dumb demoniac. So 
full and busy were the days of his life in Capernaum. 

The cures brought blessings to those who were healed, but 
they failed to convince the doubters. Those who could not 
deny the miracles ascribed them to Satan (Matt. 9:34), and 
the rest continued demanding signs (Matt. 12: 38-45; Luke 
it: 29-36). The supernatural has failed as a means of conver- 
sion. The showing of signs led to the growing demand for 
signs, till the heart of Jesus was heavy; for men sought him to 
be caused to marvel, and not to hear his words or do his will. 
So the works of healing were not an unqualified blessing, and it 
is more than doubtful whether they would serve better ends 
to-day. 




'GET THEE BEHIND ME. SATAN !" 
(HOFMANN. T82J. — ) 



CHAPTER XIII 



JESUS AND THE SABBATH 

Jesus attended a second feast at Jerusalem, as John tells us 
(5: 1) and it is commonly believed to have been a passover. 
In any event it is manifestly distinct from the passover already 
referred to (John 2: 13). This feast marks the close of the 
first year's ministry. It had been a year of small beginnings 
but of growing power. Jesus had now been in retirement for 
some time, and was greeted with interest at Jerusalem. The 
most notable public event of this visit was the work of healing 
at the Pool of Bethesda. The place is believed by many to 
have been identified, and one clambers down to the pool 
through the remains of three churches, that have been built, 
one over the ruins of the other, to mark the spot. 

Here Jesus found a man who had had an infirmity thirty- 
eight years. There was a superstition that the pool had healing 
power for the first man who entered it after the occasional 
"troubling" of the waters by an angel. The myth of the angel, 
which worked its way into the Bible narrative, has now been 
relegated to the margin. 

This incident affords us one of our best illustrations of the 
occasional inaccuracies of the text of Scripture. The oldest 
manuscripts omit the words, "waiting for the moving of the 
water" and the story of the angel troubling the pool. The 
spring was an intermittent one, and the medicinal value of the 
waters — if they had such value — may have been greater in the 
beginning of its periods of activity. Whether this was true, 
or was only believed to be true, need not concern us. Some 
scribe who knew the local superstition that this "troubling" of 
the water was occasioned by the visit of an angel, and the 
popular belief that only the first man who entered the pool 

i55 



156 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



could be healed, inserted in the margin of his copy the story 
as it is found in the version of King James. In time the added 
words found their way into the text itself; but the oldest 
copies show us that they do not belong there. We have to 
deal with the impotent man, who, doubtless believing this 
superstition, was there and had been there for a long time. We 
are not concerned with the legend of the angel. 




WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE? — (c. SCHONHERR, l82/ — ) 



Jesus asked this man, "Wilt thou be made whole?' 1 It was 
no needless question. The man had become fond of his infirm- 
ity. He had told his story a thousand times a year for nearly 
forty years, and it had grown larger and more delightfully sad 
each year. What a series of disappointments lie could relate, 
until now, if by any chance he had gotten in first, and been 
healed, his occupation would have been gone! There are peo- 
ple, not a few, who need, not medicine, but faith and resolu- 
tion, a forgetting of their disappointments and infirmities, and 
some wholesome exercise in making beds. 



JESUS AND THE SABBATH 



157 



But the healing of this man, while it added to the popular 
fame of Christ, brought about a clash with the sticklers for 
the letter of the Jewish law on the observance of the Sabbath. 
Jesus laid down the fundamental law, "The Sabbath was made 
for man." It seems to us a commonplace, but it was a strange 
doctrine then. Just so far as they could, the Jews had made 




THE MOVING OF THE WATERS — (jEAN RESTOUT, 1696-I768) 

man over to fit the Sabbath. On just this point Jesus came into 
sharp collision with the doctors of his nation, and had, in con- 
sequence, a series of discussions with them, growing out of 
various incidents in Avhich he deliberately set at naught estab- 
lished custom with reference to the Sabbath. 

It will be well for us to consider the principal occasions on 
which Jesus was criticised for disregarding the Sabbath. We 
cannot count in this list the healing of the demoniac in the 
synagogue in Capernaum (Luke 4: 31-36), for this occasioned 
no recorded criticism, and the same is true of the cure of 



I5 8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Simon's mother-in-law (Luke 4: 37-39). In both cases the 
need was so urgent that the cures were unchallenged. Pos- 
sibly, also, there were no scribes present in Capernaum. Nor 
yet may we consider the other cures wrought on that same 
day, for these were delayed by the people themselves until 
sunset (Matt. 8: 16; Mark t: 32; Luke 4: 40), when the Sab- 
bath was at an end. 

The first occasion that gave rise to controversy was this 
healing of the man at Bethesda (John 5: 1-47). The next was 
the incident of rubbing out of the grain (Matt. 12: 1-8). The 
next was the healing of the man with the withered hand (Matt. 
12: 9-14). These were the occasions of scandal in the first half 
of Jesus' ministry. Later occurred the healing of the man born 
blind, which cure occurred at Jerusalem, in the last winter 
(John 9); and soon afterward, in Persea, the healing of the 
infirm woman in the synagogue (Luke 13: 10-12) and that of 
the man with the dropsy, in the house of a Pharisee (Luke 

H: i-5)- 

We must not fail to notice that all of these controversies 

might have been avoided. The cures could have been post- 
poned until the next day; or Jesus might have taken the 
patients aside, as in other cases, and healed them privately. In 
the case of the rubbing of grain by the disciples, Jesus might 
have cautioned them to take bread, or to restrain their hunger 
lest they cause others to stumble. The offense was needless; 
Jesus deliberately courted opposition on this point. 

We must note also his defense. The Jews supposed that he 
assumed the right to abrogate the Sabbath through a claim of 
equality with God. But Jesus denied this as the ground of his 
conduct. He could do nothing apart from God. "The Son can 
do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing." 
Whatever claims he makes for his divinity, he makes this one 
as the representative of men, for whom the Sabbath was made. 

Jesus declared himself Lord of the Sabbath, by right of his 
manhood and not alone of his divinity, which up to this time 
he did not permit to be known. "I say unto you that a greater 
thing than the temple is here." 



JESUS AND THE SABBATH 159 

He defended himself by an appeal to an instance of mere 
human need. At a time in David's career, least reputable, a 
time when he was telling lies and becoming the companion of 
outlaws, his need justified the priest in breaking over a cere- 
monial law for the sake of a hungry man, insincere though he 
was. "How much is a man better than a sheep;" therefore, "It 
is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." "I desire mercy, 
and not sacrifice." 

We have no reason to doubt that Jesus esteemed highly the 
Jewish Sabbath as a day of rest and worship. Yet from the 
beginning of his ministry he deliberately and with purpose 
aforethought went out of his way to engender controversy as 
to the method of its observance. The immediate gain of his 
departures from established customs was insignificant, and the 
loss was great, so great that it involved bitter and acrimonious 
debates, alienation of disciples, and a hostility on the part of 
the priests that at length proved the occasion of his death. 

The principle of Jesus, as gathered from his own words, is 
that religion is adapted to the nature of man, and is to be 
interpreted in the light of man's need. This principle, far from 
doing away with the Sabbath, grounds it in the eternal purpose 
of God to promote the welfare of men, and makes the Sabbath 
an abiding necessity. The principle on which the Jews based 
the Sabbath would in time make it superfluous. To set forth 
the real nature of the Sabbath was consonant with the whole 
plan of Christ's work; and in it we may see in epitome the 
spirit of his whole mission. 

Thus interpreted, the Sabbath, and every institution of God 
on earth, becomes not an arbitrary requirement, but a divine 
benefaction; not the imposition of a grievous obligation, but 
the conferring of a priceless boon; not the result of a divine 
mandate for which no reason is to be asked or given, but an 
evidence of the reasonableness of God's gracious command- 
ment, ordained for the physical and mental and spiritual wel- 
fare of his children. To ground religion upon that basis was 
worth the cost of opposition. The work of Christ, so far as 
it related to organic religion and to religious institutions, was 



i6o 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



a most instructive and persuasive commentary upon the words 
of Moses: "For this commandment which I command thee 
this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it far off. It is 
not in heaven, that thou should say, Who shall go up for us 
to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that 
we may do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest 




THE POOL OF BETHESDA 



say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, 
and make us to hear it that we may do it? But the word is 
very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou 
mayest do it." (Deut. 30: 11-14.) 

God has not made an arbitrary standard to which human 
life is required to conform; he has been governed in the crea- 
tion of that standard by the nature of human life, which is 
a reflection of his own nature. The law of the Sabbath, then, 



JESUS AND THE SABBATH 



161 



is to be interpreted in the light of the physical, social, and 
spiritual needs of men. 

The world never needed a clay of rest more than in this 
busy, rushing age, in which men are breaking down from ex- 
cess of care and prolonged effort. It never needed a day of 




THE DISCIPLES RUBBING OUT THE GRAIN — (dORE. 1832-1883) 



spiritual uplift more than in the midst of our present commer- 
cialism and haste to be rich. A day of mere recreation is not 
enough. It sends the wearied man back to work more weary, 
as employers of labor testify. The world needs rest and uplift 
and spiritual impulse, and should find it in the Sabbath, which 
was made for man. If we are wise and seek the best interests 
of men, we shall not seek in the name of an imaginary "free- 



1 62 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



dom" or protest against so-called "Blue-Laws" to break down 
the too few restraints upon the weekly day of rest. Rather we 
shall seek, without limitation of personal liberty, save as it 
hinders the liberty of others, a growing reverence and love for 
the Lord's day. 

Greek mythology had among its heroes Antaeus, a gigantic 
wrestler. Born of the earth, he renewed his strength whenever 
he touched it, and was only conquered by Hercules when the 
latter lifted him into the air and there squeezed him to death. 
There is truth in the legend, as seen in the fact that our bodies 
are renewed by contact with the soil. But our souls are 
heaven-born, and renew themselves only by touching heaven. 
Our danger is that the great god Mammon, finding us with 
strength of soul depleted, will squeeze out our spiritual life in 
the pressure and grind of common things. Once a week — and 
it is not too often — let us rise to touch heaven. 



•]V 




JERUSALEM FROM THE WALL 



CHAPTER XIV 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 

The last two chapters, in their grouping of similar incidents, 
have anticipated the orderly chronological progress of the nar- 
rative. We return to Galilee and find Jesus in a new home. 
He has now established himself in Capernaum by the Sea of 
Galilee, which from this time becomes the central spot in his 
ministry. 

Jesus first visited Capernaum (John 2: 12) in March, or 
April, A. D. 27. It was a brief visit, and he was accompanied 
by his mother, the family, and the first five disciples. In April, 
28, when Jesus had been rejected at Nazareth he removed to 
Capernaum and made this place his headquarters until his final 
withdrawal from Galilee in the autumn of 29. (Matt. 19: 1, 2; 
Mark 10: 1; Luke 9: 51.) In this interval of a year and a half 
Jesus seems to have made at least nine departures from and 
returns to Capernaum. Three of them were extensive tours 
and the others were more limited visits to near-by towns. 

There is nothing in the New Testament to indicate the site 
of Capernaum beyond the fact that it was on the shore of the 
Sea of Galilee and across from Decapolis, being on or near the 
plain of Gennesaret (Matt. 4: 13; 14: 34; John 6: 17-21; 
Mark 6: 53). It is twice mentioned by Josephus (Vita, 72, 
B. J. II, X. 8), who, when injured upon the Jordan, was car- 
ried thither, and his testimony adds the fact that there was a 
fountain there. 

Capernaum derives its interest solely from its relation to 
Jesus. After his rejection in Nazareth he made his home in 
Capernaum, first as the guest of Peter, whose mother-in-law 
he healed (Mark 1: 31), and later apparently as the proprietor 
of a house probably rented for himself and disciples, as we 

163 



164 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



are told that he was "at home" (Mark 2: 1). Here he paid 
taxes (Matt. 17: 24-27), and it was called "his own city" 
(Matt. 9: 1). 

Capernaum was a "city" of some importance, the center of 
a collecting district, and the permanent station of a body of 
troops whose captain had built the synagogue (Matt. 8: 5, 
etc.). Here Jesus taught in the synagogue (John 6: 59), and 
wrought many miracles. Here he taught his disciples the 




THE BEACH OF BETHSAIDA 

('ain ET tabigha) 



lesson of humility from a little child who ran in at the door 
when it was known Jesus was "at home" (Matt. 18: 2; Mark 

9: 33.. 36). 

To this city, the home of Peter and of Andrew, whose native 
city was Bethsaida, but who had come to live in Capernaum 
(Mark 1: 29; John 1: 44), the disciples to the number of seven 
gathered after the resurrection and remained till Jesus 
appeared to them by the sea in the morning (John 21). Very 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 



165 



few places are so intimately associated with the most interest- 
ing incidents of gospel history. 

Two sites are pointed out on the Sea of Galilee as those 
which may be what little is left of Capernaum. One of these 




li£< 



as*** 



MAP OF THE SEA OF GALILEE — (BY GENERAL HENRY B. CARRINGTON, U. S. ARMY) 



is Tell Hum, at the northern end of the lake, and the other 
is Khan Minyeh, about three miles to the west, near its north- 
western extremity. Readers interested in the arguments pro 
and con can find them in extended works on this subject. It 
will answer the purpose of the present volume to give the 



i66 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



author's conviction that Khan Minyeh rather than Tell Hum 
answers the general requirements of the Biblical narrative. 
It is a place of springs, which are distinctly mentioned bv 
Josephus, and these are lacking at Tell Hum. The ruins at 
Tell Hum, however, are more extensive than at Khan Minyeh, 
and the fact that among them are the remains of a synagogue 
leads one strongly to desire to identify it as the one in which 




the shore of capernaum 
(khan minyeh) 



Jesus taught. In any event it is practically certain that he 
preached in this synagogue, as the villages at the northern end 
of the lake received his special attention. Tell Hum has been 
thought by some to be Bethsaida or possibly Chorazin, but 
Chorazin is probably identical with a ruin north of Tell Hum. 
Chorazin is referred to only in Matt, n: 21; Luke 10: 13, and 
is located west of the Sea of Galilee and of the Jordan. Jerome 
locates it two miles from Capernaum, but says it was deserted 
in his day. It was praised in ancient days for its wheat. 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 



167 



Thomson, in 1857, identified it at the ruin called Kerazeh, 
which is generally received as correct, but the identification, 
while probable, is uncertain. This site is off the lake, and 
nearly north of Tell Hum. We do not know what incidents 
occurred there, but the place is referred to by Jesus as one 
of the three that had had the largest opportunity to see and 
know him. It is a striking fact that the cities which Jesus 
denounced for their unbelief have all disappeared, past the 




THE DRAUGHT OF FISHES — ( GRAYER, I582-1669) 



possibility of certain indentification. If Capernaum was at Khan 
Minyeh, Bethsaida was probably located at 'Ain et Tabigha 
(Heptaregon) — a little vale, bordering a beautiful curve in the 
beach east of the rocky promontory of Tell 'Ariemeh — the 
monkish "Mensa Christi". There was also another Bethsaida, 
on the other side of the lake, where the five thousand were fed. 
We shall have occasion, in considering that miracle, to men- 
tion this Bethsaida and the question of its site or sites. 

There is only one other city on the Galilee side of the lake 
that has interest for us in connection with the work of Jesus, 



1 68 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

and we have no specific mention of his visiting there. Magdala, 
identical with the modern El-Medjel, is identified beyond 
reasonable doubt, and lies south of all the above villages. It 
is now a poor and miserable town, situated in a fertile region, 
well watered but very poorly cultivated. It is a striking fact 
that it alone of the cities associated with Christ's ministry 
here, should be certainly identified. It brings to our memorv 
the fidelity of the woman who, healed by Jesus from her 
insanity, was faithful to him to the end; "last at the cross and 
earliest at the grave." 

The city of Tiberias, which lies farther south on the same 
side of the lake, was begun in Christ's youth, and completed 
during the early part of his ministry, but we have no record 
that he ever visited it. It is to-day the principal city on the 
lake, and the point of departure for excursions upon its waters. 

It is of little consequence that we are unable to identify 
the sites of the cities that adorned the Sea of Galilee in Christ's 
day. One of them does as well as another for the purpose of 
illustration or as a point of departure. It is the lake itself that 
chiefly holds our interest. No tourist who has ever made the 
journey will recall without a thrill of satisfaction the experience 
of a sail upon this deep, blue body of water so intimately asso- 
ciated with the most striking scenes of our Lord's ministry. 

The event which brought Jesus back from Judaea into Gali- 
lee was the imprisonment of John the Baptist, for the sake 
of whose disciples Jesus had once before withdrawn from the 
neighborhood of Jerusalem (John 4: 1, 2; Matt. 4: 12; Mark 
1: 14; Luke 4: 14, 15). Returning first to his own home, 
Nazareth, and finding no welcome there, he had come to Caper- 
naum, where, on the first Sabbath, he taught in the synagogue, 
healed the mother-in-law of Peter, and wrought many cures 
(Matt. 8: 14-17; Mark 1: 21-34; Luke 4: 31-41). 

Then came a memorable clay on the Sea of Galilee. Peter 
had been fishing all night, and with poor success, but tired 
as he was he would not go home.* His nets needed washing, 



*I quote a few paragraphs from my book "I Go A Fishing." 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 



169 



and a crowd was gathering on the beach. Peter had been, 
since the Sabbath, a noted man in the village, for he was 
entertaining the new Rabbi. Peter for more than a year had 
been an avowed disciple of Jesus. 

Soon the crowd parted, and Jesus passed through to the 
water's edge. The people pressed upon him so that he could 




ANCIENT AQUEDUCT ABOVE KHAN MINYEH 



not see over their heads, and he looked about for a pulpit. 
There were boats at hand, and he knew Peter's from the rest, 
and, stepping into it, asked Peter to push out a few yards, and 
hold the boat where he could make himself heard. 

We have no record of the sermon or its results. The Master 
uttered his message, and the seed fell, some by the wayside, 
some on the rock, some in the thorns and some on good 



lyo JESUS OF NAZARETH 

ground. It is a mistake to expect a pentecost after every 
sermon, or even that every sermon shall be remembered. 

The sermon was finished, and Peter took Jesus for a sail, 
and the Master showed Peter where to fkh with good success. 
The net came up full and overloaded. It was a large recom- 
pense for the use of Peter's boat, but Peter found in the 
miraculous draught of fishes other suggestions. In some wa • 
that miracle was a call to a new and more intimate discipleship. 

It was their divinely given success that brought those first 
avowed disciples to a point where they were ready to leave all 
with him. They left the fishing business with a record of 
success, and not because business had failed. Harry More- 
house, the English evangelist who so quickened Moody, used 
to say of this miracle, "It takes faith to leave fish." Such 
faith as was requisite the disciples did not lack. 

Four disciples were present when Jesus uttered this second 
call to service. John was one of these, as he had been one 
of the first, and with him now is his brother James. Andrew 
and Peter are there, also. The group has not grown smaller. 
Nathansel and Philip may have been at Cana for a time, as 
they seem to have had interests both there and at Bethsaida. 
At any rate they have not dropped out of the circle. The 
number has not diminished to four; it has grown to six. This 
half dozen, all fishermen, now leave their work and accompany 
Jesus on his first preaching tour through Galilee. 

The tour was not a long one. It extended into "the next 
towns," which were probably Bethsaida, Chorazin, and the 
other lake villages. He healed a leper in one of these places, 
and cast out demons, "And Simon and they that were with 
him followed after him." 

It is by no means certain that they never fished again. They 
were soon back in Capernaum, in which town Jesus seems to 
have made nine different sojourns between his missionary 
tours. On these he was accompanied by his band of disciples, 
who, during the earlier portion of his ministry, may have 
resumed, when at home, their former occupation. But there 
was a distinct advance in their conception of discipleship. To 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 



171 



follow Jesus now meant far more than it had clone fourteen 
months before. They were still fishermen, but they were 
called to be with their Lord, and to that call they had responded 
gladly, nobly. 

After his first tour of Galilee, Jesus returned to Capernaum, 
and there, in early summer, he healed the paralytic, and was 
charged with blasphemy for claiming power to forgive sins 
(Matt. 9: 2-8; Mark 2: 3-12; Luke 5: 18-26). He had another 
controversy, also, occasioned by his disciples rubbing out 




TELL HUM 



grain on the Sabbath, to which reference has already been 
made. 

At this time, too, Jesus added another to the number of 
his disciples, Matthew, or Levi, the tax-collector (Matt. 9: 9; 
Mark 2: 14; Luke 5: 27-28), whom he called from his place of 
business, and who followed him. 

The spring passed by, and the summer came on. Jesus 
sometimes left the hot homes of men, and taught by the sea- 
side (Mark 2: 13), and sometimes he preached from a boat, and 
afterward went for a sail. 



172 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



I do not wonder that Jesus loved the blue lake of Galilee, 
"the most sacred sheet of water which the earth contains." 
The rabbis declared that of the seven seas created by Jehovah, 
this was his delight. Josephus grew rapturous over it, saying 
that it might be called "the ambition of nature," and that "the 




THE CALL OF MATTHEW — (BIDA, 1813-1895) 

seasons seemed to vie for its possession." But to its natural 
beauty is added this unspeakable charm, that its shores have 
been trod and its waters sailed by Jesus, the Christ. The 
pilgrim from the new world recalls its every memory with a 
thrill of delight, and sings in his heart, 

O Galilee, sweet Galilee, where Jesus loved so much to be! 
O Galilee, blue Galilee, come sing thy song again to me! 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 



173 



I shall never live to be old enough to forget my own sail 
on the Sea of Galilee. The day was bright with sunshine. The 
waters rippled into song about the boat. The shores were 
brilliant with flowers. The whole scene was one of beauty. 
The southern end of the lake, shut in by hills, was calm, and 




THE CALLING OF MATTHEW 
(CHEMENTO OF EMPOLI, I554-1640) 



our progress was made by "toiling in rowing"; but at the 
northern end there sprang up a brisk breeze which caused us 
to speed rapidly on our course with all on board sitting to 
windward on the gunwale. Other boats filled with members 
of our party were near at hand and sailing over the same 
course, and competition between the boatmen was keen for the 



174 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



first arrival. The race added its own zest to the occasion. 
There was no memory of fatigue from the long ride over the 
Galilasan hills; all sense of weariness vanished. The spray 
dashed over our bow and the boatmen sang merrily as we 
passed one after another of our competitors. But the race 
was not the only thing that thrilled us, for again and again 
we remembered how the disciples had sailed that same little 




FISHERMAN WASHING HIS NET 



sea, and our Lord himself had been with them repeatedly as 
they loosed from this same shore and launched out across its 
blue waters. In his day the lake was alive with boats. The 
highways on the shore were thronged with caravans. The 
fertile hillsides clothed with wheat and barley sloped down to 
the water, and the valleys crimson with flowers were beautiful 
in the sunshine. In all Palestine there is no other spot so 



BESIDE THE SEA OF GALILEE 



175 



sacred, so free from mercenary or superstitious associations, 
so unspoiled by modern innovations; nor is there in all the 
world another place where the imagination is so free to make 
real to itself the scenes in the life of Christ. 

The Sea of Galilee is 627 feet below the level of the Mediter- 
ranean. The hills around it rise to a height of 1,200 to 2,000 
feet. The greatest depth of the water is 156 feet. The ex- 
treme length of the lake is twelve and one-fourth miles, and 
its greatest width six and three-fourths. Fish still abound in 
it and are good to eat. They furnished us an excellent supper, 
and along the shores the fishermen were washing their nets 
as in the days of Jesus. I caught a photograph of one of these 
fishermen as we sailed by; it is not very distinct, but it is 
worth reproducing because thoroughly characteristic. 

Amid scenes such as this we spent a memorable day, and 
when we tied our tent flaps down at night and went to sleep 
beside the lake which Jesus loved, it was with a new sense 
of the reality of the life and labor of the Son of man, who trod 
these shores and sailed this sea and there wrought his lasting 
work on the lives of his disciples and the world. 




TIBERIAS. 



CHAPTER XV 



THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 

One night in midsummer, A. D. 28, Jesus withdrew from 
his disciples and remained alone on a mountain near the Sea 
of Galilee (Luke 6: 12). It was one of his many nights alone 
in prayer. In the morning he came down to the seaside, and 
again preached from Peter's boat. The multitude now throng- 
ing him was great, and the best way to secure a little space, 
that more might hear, was by putting a narrow stretch of water 
between him and his audience. 

After a time he came ashore, and climbed the mountain 
again, and took with him twelve men, whom from this time 
he called his apostles. Six of them are already known to us; 
Matthew has lately joined the group, and the other five have 
been his disciples from the beginning. They are Peter and 
Andrew, Philip and Nathansel or Bartholomew, and John. 
James, the brother of John, had also come into the group, and 
there was another James, the son of Alphseus. The other four 
are Thomas, ''the twin," and Simon, the revolutionist, and 
Judas, also called Lebbseus, and Thaddseus, and Judas the 
traitor. 

There were three pairs of brothers among the apostles. 
Several of them had been associated as relatives or as partners 
in business. All were from Galilee. It was a small, and not 
very inclusive group, yet it was more representative than we 
might suppose, and quite as heterogeneous as was consistent 
with harmony. 

There is a book in the New Testament called popularly "The 
Acts of the Apostles." The title is noteworthy, because the 
acts of so few of the apostles are recorded. For the most part 
we do not know by what specific deeds the most of these men 

176 



THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 



177 



approved themselves as apostles of the Lord. It is enough 
to know that the Lord knoweth them that are his. Not even 
the apostles can be sure of widely advertised achievements as 
the token of sure discipleship, but the humblest disciple may 
rejoice in opportunities of service such as made up the obscure 
and worthy labor of a majority of the apostles. 




FISHERMEN ON THE SHORE NEAR WHERE THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED 



Matthew was a tax-collector, and Simon Zelotes was a tax- 
hater and an insurrectionist, and some of the rest we do not 
know about. * But more than half of them were fishermen, 
and it was this occupation which supplied the figure of speech 
which to this day describes their official work. They were 
fishers of men. They were disciples already, but the time had 
come for them to assume a still more intimate relationship to 
Jesus. 



*See "I Go A Fishing." 



i 7 8 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



"Ye are the light of the world," he said; "Ye are the 
salt of the earth." These were strange words for him to say 
to a company of fishermen, even with the world as small as 
it then was, but he spoke truly. For the Galilsean fishermen 
had been chosen apostles, and were now set apart to preach the 
good tidings to all the earth. 

This was the end of their fishing for fish. Peter, to be sure, 
once cast a line in an emergency, and caught a fish, and thus 




CHRIST AND THE FISHERMEN — (ZIMMERMANN, 1852 — ) 



made his former vocation supply his Lord's need and his own. 
But to all intents and purposes the second preaching of Jesus 
from the boat was the closing of the fishing industry for the 
men whose boat it was. For perhaps two months they had 
been attending him almost constantly; now, they were 
formally set apart for life-long service, and for nearly two years 
they remained with him. It is not our present purpose to 
follow them in the experiences of those two years. It is 



THE ORDINATION OF THE TWELVE 



179 



enough for us to know that they followed Jesus. Sometimes 
there were crowds to hear him, and sometimes he was deserted, 
but they followed him. Sometimes they thought that they 
saw his throne ahead, and later they knew that they saw his 
cross, but they followed him. They were ignorant and narrow 
and ambitious, but they were faithful. "Let us go with him 
that we may die with him," said Thomas, whom we cruelly 
remember as the doubter. They all followed him — afar off, 
sometimes — but there are few more beautiful things in history 




JESUS PREACHING FROM PETER'S BOAT — (hOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



than the devotion of that little band that saw the multitude 
dwindle, and heard the cheers change to hoarse cries for blood, 
and listened to the taunts of the Pharisees, and saw the 
machinations of the priests increasing to succes, but still fol- 
lowed him. 

I cannot refrain from reproducing here one of my own snap- 
shot photographs, taken on the wharf of Tell Hum, with my 
own boat and boatmen rather dimly shown. The photograph 
is none too clear; but very distinct in my own memory is the 
impression made upon me during the sail, that it was just 



i8o 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



such sturdy, warm-hearted, but untaught men whom ywas 
called, and whose story, imparted by himself, has transformed 
the world. No single impression of my journey in Palestine 
stands out more clear-cut in my memory than that suggested 
by the men in this dim photograph. It was not men like these 
that changed the course of history, but the Lord whom they 
followed and who transformed them. 




MODERN GALLEAN FISHERMEN. 



CHAPTER XVI 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 

Much of Bible history gathers itself about its mountains. 
The Hebrew lifted up his eyes to the hills, and rejoiced in the 
presence of God which he found symbolized in the mountains 
round about Jerusalem. The hills of the Holy Land are full 
of pleasant suggestions. When landing at Haifa, one sees 
above him the rugged ridge of Carmel, and soon before him the 
rounded cone of Tabor. There is Lebanon to the north, with 
Hermon just over the Mizpeh valley. David saw the storm 
sweep over Lebanon, breaking its cedars, and heard in its 
thunders the voice of God. John saw the snowy summit of 
Hermon with the clouds and sunlight playing over it, and it 
became to him suggestive of the great white throne, with the 
rainbow round about the throne of God. As Hermon and 
Lebanon range themselves over against each other, so in 
reality and in association do Ebal and Gerizim, where the law 
was read with its blessings from one, and its cursings from 
the other. Then, there are mounts Hor, where Aaron died, 
and Nebo, where Moses looked, first across the Jordan into 
the land of promise, and then across a narrower stream into 
heaven. There are Carmel, where the fire descended in answer 
to Elijah's prayer, and Horeb where the tempest and earth- 
quake and fire were followed by the still small voice. 

The life of Christ is closely related to the hills of Palestine. 
More than once he went apart into a mountain to pray. It 
was from a mountain crest that, beholding the beauties of 
Jerusalem, suddenly revealed to his vision, he wept over the 
city. There are the mount with the garden of Gethsemane at 
its base, and the mount on which he was transfigured. There 

181 



182 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



are Calvary with its cross and Olivet where his feet last pressed 
the earth before he ascended into heaven. 

Among all these sacred hills room must be made for an- 
other — the mount of his great sermon. A little apart from 
the multitude, but with the throng in full sight below, Jesus 
took his disciples to the top of one of the two low horns which 




A CITY SET IN A HILL 



crown the summit of the plateau of Hattin, and there preached 
his sermon on the mount. 

The hills of Scripture fall somewhat naturally into pairs, and 
this mount inevitably suggests comparison with Sinai, where 
the law was given. The author of Hebrews contrasted, not 
this particular hill, but the whole system of Christianity, with 
Sinaitic Judaism, in his lofty words: "For ye are not come 
unto a mount that might be touched, and that burned with 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 



183 



fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the 
sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they 
that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto 
them: for they could not endure that which was enjoined, If 




THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT — (FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 



even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so 
fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly 
fear and quake: but ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto 
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to 
innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and 
church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God 
the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 



1 84 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood 
of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel." 
(Hebrews 12: 18-25.) 

It is natural for us to make this contrast somewhat more 
specific, to set the gospels over against the law, the beatitudes 
opposite the commandments, and to contrast the system of 
negation and command of the Old Testament with that of love 
and inspiration in the New. Thus does Sinai find its full com- 
plement as well as its antithesis in the mount of Christ's 
discourse. Sinai is bleak, barren and inaccessible; but Hattin 
is fertile, and covered with flowers and grain; the command- 
ments are negative and prohibitory; the beatitudes overflow 
with the blessings of positive righteousness. 

The traveler from Nazareth or the Mediterranean coast to 
the Sea of Galilee, following the road that winds among low 
hills on the elevated table land, sees at length before him and 
to the left, a double-turreted hill, and knows it at once as 
Mount Hattin — the "Horns of Hattin." A detour of a mile 
or more will bring him to its summit, and may introduce him 
to a group of dark and threatening-looking Arabs, who rise 
up out of the ground and demand bakshish for his damage to 
their wheat fields. Whether they own the fields, or he has 
done them any damage, need not long be considered, nor is 
it necessary to inquire too closely into their intentions. A 
few small coins, produced without taking out his purse, may 
well be given them, and the tourist will do well to rejoin his 
company on the road below as speedily as is consistent with 
a dignified retreat. No tourist should ride to Hattin alone, 
and he who does so will probably be left somewhat uncertain 
as to whether the Arabs really intended to rob him or not. 
This, at least, was the experience of some men of my own 
party, who became separated from the main body by their 
interest in the Horns of Hattin. 

It was the tradition of the Crusaders that fixed upon Hattin 
as the scene of the Sermon on the Mount. Dean Stanley 
adopted the tradition, and gave it general currency. Our first 
thought would be that a mountain nearer Capernaum would 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 185 

more probably have been chosen; but this objection grows 
less if Capernaum was at Khan Minyeh and not at Tell Hum. 

The "mountain" is only sixty feet above the table-land; but 
the plateau itself stands high above the plain of the lake. It is 
thus conspicuous from the lake, and would easily have been 
the goal of a company ascending from the water's edge to 
hear a sermon from Jesus. We cannot, of course, be sure that 
this is the hill where Jesus sat and preached, but there is 
nothing in its situation to render the tradition improbable. 

The Crusaders gave the hill its present name: and they had 
sad reason to remember it; for here, where Jesus blessed the 
peace-makers, occurred a bloody battle. On July 5, 1187, 
under a blazing sun, thirsty and faint and overburdened with 
their armor, the Christians fell before the furious charge of 
Saladin. Their dead bodies lay on this sacred slope; their 
blood reddened once more the bloody plain of Esdrselon; and 
the Saracen was left in possession of the land where Jesus lived 
and taught. Here was lost the true cross, as the Crusaders 
esteemed it, and the crescent flamed over the Mount of 
Beatitudes. 

Of the public discourses of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount 
is the one most fully reported. We have as much as he proba- 
bly spoke in fifteen minutes, and that appears less a report 
of a single discourse than a collection of utterances, some of 
them used in other connections. 

Scholars have found it impossible to agree upon an analysis 
of this address which makes it correspond to our modern idea 
of a sermon, that is, a connected discourse, with a definite 
proposition and with logical progress of thought from one 
division to the next. In our modern sense it was not a sermon 
at all. It is not easy to state its central thought in a single 
proposition, as a sermon is supposed to do, but the teachings 
of the sermon gather about the general idea of the righteous- 
ness of the kingdom of God. It discusses many things — the 
blessedness of doing good; the character of the disciples in their 
relation to the world; the relation of Christ's teaching to the 
Law; the duty and the form of prayer; the importance of 



1 86 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

discrimination; the sin of judging harshly; and the stability of 
character of those who hear and heed the sayings of Christ 
as opposed to the sandy foundation under the lives of those 
without faith in him. These general ideas and the disconnected 
precepts enjoining these duties, have these co-ordinating prin- 
ciples: trust in God, who cares for the lily and the sparrow; 
fidelity to our fellow-men in the spirit of the Golden Rule; and 
the essential unity of all spiritual interests in the kingdom of 
God. Trust in God, as herein taught, is enjoined with this 




THE SEA OF GALILEE FROM TELL HUM 



promise, "Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness, 
and all these things shall be added unto you." 

It is not the purpose of this book to give expositions of any 
of the extended discussions of Jesus. Books abound in which 
this is done, and well done. Tt is enough for our present pur- 
pose to note in this discourse the relation of the work of 
Christ to the Old Testament law. Jesus declared that he 
came not to destroy but to fulfil the law. He destroyed only 
as the flower is destroyed which becomes fruit; for he said of 
the old law, "Ye have heard that it was said, . . . but I say 
unto you." He fulfilled till the old law overflowed. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 



l8 7 



There are two wrong notions of Christianity, one that it is 
a sort of revision of the Jewish law; the other, that it is 
primarily the declaration of a system of philosophy. Chris- 
tianity is not a system of legislation. Christ came not to give 
law, but life. "Which is the great commandment?" The 




GARDEN OF THE FRANCISCAN MONKS AT TELL HUM 

question had little interest for Jesus, but he had an answer. 
There is one commandment which includes them all — love for 
God and man. But this is the very point; love cannot be 
compelled; hence love is above law. Love and legislation are 
two different matters. Wherefore, he who sees in Christ's 
"new commandment" only a summary of the Mosaic code 
misses the whole spirit of Christianity. 



1 88 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Some good people have this idea of law so inwrought into 
their minds that they cannot help thinking that God must be 
the victim of his own laws, must inflict their penalties whether 
he will or no. And they say, "God would willingly forgive the 
penitent sinner, but the penalty of law must be enforced. 
Christ paid that penalty, and we are free from the law." 

But he who thus speaks has not gotten to the bottom of the 
problem. To him may be said, "Thou hast nothing to draw 
with, and the well is deep. Whence shalt thou bring up living 
water?" The infliction of penalty was the least of God's 
troubles. What God desired was to make penalty unnecessary. 
Christ came to conquer the evil that has its root in flesh, and 
give righteouness, not of mere legality, but of sonship. 

We are told that "What the law could not do," God accom- 
plished in Christ. The law could do some things, and did. It 
was not superfluous, but it was temporary. It was not the 
divine ideal. It taught men the power of God. It gave to 
them a high conception of their obligation to him. It forced 
them to think of duty, and enhanced their idea of the sinfulness 
of sin by making it expensive, and by the shedding of blood. 
It emphasized the elements necessary to national duty. It 
kept the Jewish people separate, an integral nation, during the 
long time needed for the development of God's purpose. All 
this and more the law did. But perfect obedience is not thus 
secured. The law was weak because it gave no permanent 
leverage on character. A man might keep the law outwardly 
and still be but a whited sepulchre. It imposed burdens that 
were irksome. It tended to promote formal observance with- 
out the spirit of obedience. It had the necessary defects of 
its virtues. It was a good thing for the time being. It was 
no failure, except as it failed to do what it was never expected 
to do. It accomplished what God intended, and God is patient 
and can wait for a new day and another method. God is fer- 
tile in resources, and his successes are largest toward the last. 
The earlier methods are successful in proportion to their rela- 
tion to these. 



THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 



189 



How many of God's efforts seem abortive! The first man 
born to humanity was a murderer. The first attempt to make 
.saints of his parents ended in their expulsion from Paradise. 
The first settlement of the then known world was so unsatis- 
factory that the flood was called into requisition. The first 
son of Abraham, through whom the patriarch hoped for the 
promise, was a warrior with his hand against every man's hand. 
The first king of the Jewish nation was a disappointment, and 
a new dynasty came on. x\nd the author of Hebrews would 
have us believe that the whole old covenant was in some sort 
a failure, and passed away for its weakness and unprofitableness 
(Heb. 7: 18). 

Jesus came, not to restore the law, but to establish a republic 
of God; in whose realm God should rule by consent and co- 
operation of the governed. God could rule unchallenged in 
the stellar spaces, but in the heart of man he sought and still 
seeks not law, but grace. "The law was given by Moses, but 
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." 




HEAD OF CHRIST 
(DA VINCI, I452-I519) 



CHAPTER XVII 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 

One day in the summer of A. D. 28, two or three men 
clambered down the high walls that shut in the Dead Sea, and 
began a long walk up the Jordan valley. They were earnest 
men, but we do not know their names. They were from the 
remnant of a little band that had remained with John, not 
forsaking him for Jesus. We may not approve their judgment, 
but we must admire their loyalty. 

These men had seen, with iealousv for their heroic teacher, 
the crowds deserting him and going to Tesus. They did not 
understand it, and they did not like it. Who was Jesus but 
a disciple of John, like themselves? Had not John baptized 
him? On what ground but one could he rise above John — 
that of being the Messiah? And if he were the Messiah, whv 
did he not say so, and prove it by releasing John? They had 
always complained, as they prayed and kept their fasts, that 
Jesus did not fast; and John was now in prison in the dark 
fortress of Machaerus, while Jesus was attending feasts in 
Pharisees' houses, or eating with Matthew and the like. Whv 
did he not stop his feasting and release John? They pro- 
pounded these question to John: and John, heroic doubter, at 
length charged them to go to Jesus and demand an answer to 
this question: "Art thou he that should come, or look we for 
another?" Jesus did not answer the question directly which 
these stern men propounded to him, but said to John's 
disciples, "Go and shew John again these things which ye do 
hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, 
and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is 
he, whosoever shall not be offended in me" (Matt. 11: 4-6). 

190 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 191 

He knew that he could trust John to make the deduction. 
John might doubt, but he would not desert. Jesus hastened, 
too, to tell his own disciples not to think ill of John for his 
doubt ; John was no reed shaken by the wind, but a man, every 
inch a man. Another point Jesus wished made clear; the right 
of John and himself to live differently, and to teach in different 
ways, and yet both to speak God's truth and live godly lives. 




YOUNG JOHN THE BAPTIST — (RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 

John lived the ascetic life; Jesus lived a free life among men. 
He did not say that his or John's was the better way, but that 
wisdom was justified of both her children, and that people 
who wished to do right might choose in all earnestness the 
one or the other course for the sake of God and the world. 
But he complained that people criticised both, and followed 
neither. 



IQ2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Jesus was no bigot. He was tolerant, broad, appreciative. 
The principles which he laid down concerning himself and 
John were wise, just and right. Not uniformity of outward life, 
but unity in the inward spirit; not unity of creed, but unity of 
faith — this is the unity of the gospel. 

It was the question of John's disciples in regard to fasting, 
however, that brought forth that statement of Jesus of the 
superiority of the new to the old. And this, in effect, did 
pronounce his way superior to that of John. In unmistakable 
terms he declared that the new way was better than the old; 
that he had not come to patch an old system, but to establish 
a new and better one. 

"And he spake also a parable unto them; No man rendeth 
a piece from a new garment and putteth it upon an old gar- 
ment; else he will rend the new, and also the piece from the 
new will not agree with the old. And no man putteth new 
wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst the skins, 
and itself will be spilled, and the skins will perish. But new 
wine must be put into fresh wine-skins. And no man having 
drunk old wine desireth new: for he saith, The old is good" 
(Luke 5: 36-39)- 

All this is plain but the last verse, which, singularly, is often 
used to prove the very opposite of what Jesus intended. It 
is one of the misused texts of Scripture. It is taken as Christ's 
endorsement of old ways and old forms of faith. But Jesus 
was telling why his system must be a new one — because the 
old one was not worth patching. He had new wine which 
must be put into new bottles. Neither was the old wine good 
enough nor were the old bottles good enough. The contrast 
is not between wine which was good because old, and other 
wine which was poor because new. The point is that some 
men have drunk of the old until thev assume that onlv old can 
be good. 

Old wine is not always good, neither is new wine necessarily 
bad. Old wine may be better than wine of the same quality 
less old, but the process of aging has its perils. Old wine 
becomes musty. Old wine deposits dregs. The old prophets 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 



*93 



cried out against the people of their day that they had "settled 
upon their lees" (Jer. 48: 11; Zeph. 1: 12). That is one ol the 
perils of old wine. That was the trouble in Jesus' day. The 
wine was so old that it was near the bottom of the cask; stale 
full of sediment, and unwholesome. People said, 'The old is 
good enough," and kept drinking it, and the longer they drank 
it, the worse it became. Even this is not the greatest peril in 
old wine. It generates increased intoxicating power. It 




AIN KARIM, TRADITIONAL BIRTHPLACE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 



blinds men to the way in which they walk. It makes men be- 
lieve that all safety is in the past. It renders them careless of 
the duties and perils of the present. If old salt can lose its 
savor and become worthless, old wine may lose its virtue and 
acquire positive poison. 

New wine lacks much which connoisseurs enjoy. It lacks 
the flavor and poetry, and I know not how much more. But 
it has life. It has power to ferment and work off its own 
impurities, to clarify itself, all of which the old wine lacks. If 



I94 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

the fermentation be unpleasant while in progress, it is at least 
better than eternal deadness. The new is raw and crude and 
insipid, or at least it has the credit of being all these, but it 
has in it the power to work out a future. It has not settled 
into hopeless content and an inert conservatism. 

There is no temper of mind, except a shallow, curious skepti- 
cism, so fatal to truth as a dead orthodoxy. And the two are 
not incompatible. They often co-exist in the same community, 
and sometimes in the same individual. The stationary nether 
millstone of conservatism and the upper stone of skeptical 
curiosity, which asks, "What 'is truth?" and does not wait for 
an answer, between them grind truth to a powder. The 
temper of both is in the bad sense of the word, conservative, 
yet in the true sense of the term both are destructive. 

Jesus was the advocate of the new. He came as the bringer 
of a new and better covenant. He taught a new birth. He 
revealed a new hope for humanity. His new cloth was too 
good to be used to patch an old garment. He used it to make 
a new and better spiritual robe than the fig-leaf invention of 
the old. He taught his disciples to bring out of their treasures 
things new as well as old, and the things he taught them were 
to them surprisingly new. Men were continually saying that 
this was new to them, that they had never seen it on this wise 
before. He came to fulfil the prophet's promise that men 
should receive a new heart. He came to reveal a new salvation. 
He taught a new code of ethics. He revealed a new purpose 
of God. In this illustration of the old wine and the new, the 
old bottles and the new, his sympathies were with the new, 
and his promise to his disciples was to drink with them the 
fruit of the vine, new in the kingdom of God. And when the 
rapt young Son of Thunder saw him in his final glory, it was 
in a new heaven and reigning over a new earth. 

We talk of the "old, old story," but the gospel is "good 
news." We trace the same plan through the ages, but to each 
age it is a new revelation, with transitions most abrupt. No 
age has been able fully to adjust itself to the new features of 
God's plan. It is a defect of our Christian poetry and hymnody 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 



195 



that we have few songs fitly setting forth the newness and 
freshness of the divine life in the believing soul. We have 
even dropped from our hymn-books that first of the hymns 
of Watts, 

Behold the glories of the Lamb 

Upon his Father's throne; 
Prepare new honors for his name, 

And songs before unknown. 

We have songs that are new, but in too large proportion 
they are songs about the "old, old story." The Bible is full 




JOHN REBUKING HEROD— (g. FATTORI. 1828— ) 



of the shout, "Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song," and the 
promise of heaven is that the songs shall be new. With God 
is perpetual spring-time of righteousness: the Christian life 
is a fountain of everlasting youth. Experience and the song 
of the Christian should be more of the newness of the hope 



196 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

which has come to men in Christ. We are all familiar with 
the camp-meeting song — 

It's the old-time religion, 
And it's good enough lor me. 

Its successive stanzas tell that it was "good enough for 
Moses," and "good enough for David," and so on. The tune 
has the swing and tread of conviction, and the theme gathers 
power as the song goes on. But the religion that was good 
enough for Moses was the best religion that Moses could 
obtain; "the old-time religion" was not good enough for him. 
The religion that was good enough for David, was David's 
best possible and somewhat better than that of Moses. John's 
religion was good, but not good enough for Jesus. The new 
was better. 

We have had glimpses of the character of John and we are 
soon to lose sight of him altogether. Before the sword falls, 
let us pause for a more intimate acquaintance of the man who 
sits in his chains awaiting — and with what emotion — the 
return of his messengers from their visit to Jesus. 

With John we stand upon the watershed, between the Old 
and the New dispensations. He belonged to the Old, and 
hence the least in the kingdom of heaven had privileges denied 
him; but his heart and life belonged to the New, and among 
earth's unselfish heroes his is a foremost place. 

Let us notice first his modesty and unselfishness. The 
people were eager to claim him as the Christ. Popular senti- 
ment was all in his favor. Even after he was dead, his name 
was a name to conjure with, and was well used by Jesus for 
his own protection. The Jews could not answer his question 
concerning John, for they feared the people, for all men 
acknowledged John as a prophet. This speaks more even 
than the burst of intense enthusiasm which his life kindled 
for the depth of his influence upon the nation. Had he 
assumed to be the Messiah, he could have gathered about him 
a band as devoted and loyal as that which went out into the 
wilderness to Mattathias, the Maccabee, and his sons. "But he 
confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ." 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 197 

He denied even being the prophet whom they were expecting. 
He bore the office of Elijah, but refused Elijah's honors. Even 
the honors due himself he declined in his almost supersensitive 
fear that he might attach the popular affection so strongly to 
him that it might not easily transfer itself to the One who was 
to come. Who this One was, he did not know. He was per- 
sonally acquainted with Jesus, but knew him only as an upright 
man. "I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with 
water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the 
Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which 
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." To behold this descent of 
the Spirit, John watched eagerly. He seems to have thought 
of the coming One as possibly present among any of his audi- 
ences, and perhaps eagerly scanned the faces before him him- 
self to discover, if he might, the expected King, as he said: 
"There standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it 
is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's 
latchet I am not worthy to unloose." 

If to any one it seem an easy thing for such a man as John 
to lay down his honors at the feet of Jesus, let him but reflect 
how earnestly he himself is tempted to contend for such petty 
honors as may come to him, and how hard a thing it is to lay 
them aside for duty's sake; and then put himself, with all a 
man's pride of leadership, with all a man's aspirations, with all 
a man's love of accomplishing in the sight of men what he 
feels himself able to accomplish, with all a man's fondness for 
recognition, and natural inclination to protest against neglect, 
in John's place, and try to imagine himself doing what John did. 

To be sure, John did but his duty; but if a man be not 
praised for doing his duty, for what shall he be praised? And 
if he himself, by stern determination to make that duty appear 
easy, covers from the world the struggle, the disappointment, 
the humiliation which it involves, shall we not the more cer- 
tainly give honor to whom honor is due? "He was not that 
Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light," says the 
other John of him; but Christ is unwilling that we should 
think because John was not that light, he was no light at all. 



198 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

"He was a burning and a shining light," says Jesus. But John 
himself did not call himself even a light. He was not the 
Christ, not Elijah, not that other prophet, nothing at all — but 
a voice. He was simply his message; as to his personality, he 
was not. John was like that unknown prophet of the exile, 
who either found an unrecognized book of Isaiah — which for a 
hundred or more years had lain without influencing current 
literature or thought, so far as we can learn — or himself gave 
to the captive Jews the latter part of the book now known by 
the name of Isaiah (and whichever of these hypotheses is true, 
he must have been a man of rare faith and inspiration). Like 
that exile prophet who took up the broken strands of earlier 
prophecy and connected them with his own time and cast 
to the sinking nation a strong rope of hope — but who is him- 
self known to us, not even by name, but only as an echo of 
Isaiah — John wished to be simply "a voice." He answered 
inquiries concerning himself by quoting those earlier words and 
saying, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare 
ye the way of the Lord." It is not easy to eliminate one's 
personality and be but a voice. When children, we were told 
by our elders, and we learned the lesson with difficulty, that 
we should "be seen and not heard." To learn later in life to 
be heard, if need be, but not seen, is not an easier lesson. It is 
easier to give alms when a trumpet is sounded before us, but 
greater charity is sometimes seen only by him who seeth in 
secret. 

We must note also the character of his preaching. It was 
preparatory, but it was thoroueh. His was foundation work 
which was to be covered by that built upon it, even his baptism 
not counting as Christian baptism, but it was no half-way 
preaching which he did. The ax was laid to the root of the 
tree. He preached repentance and the approach of the king- 
dom of God. The great themes of the gospel — faith, hope, 
love — were treated by those who followed, but John's themes 
are by no means out of date. Grant that John was an ascetic, 
that his hard and inflexible doctrine of righteousness is inferior 
to the liberty with which Christ has made us free, the time has 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 



199 



not come as yet to pass lightly over the need of deep con- 
trition for sin, and the even greater need of bringing forth 




THE BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST — (c. S. PEARCE, l88l — ) 



fruits meet for repentance. John's preaching was also prac- 
tical. It took hold of the live issues of the day, the labor 



200 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

troubles, and the social discontent of his time. It was strong, 
earnest, every-day gospel, good for all times. 

Note also John's courage. When, since Nathan stood before 
David and rebuked him for his great sin, had a prophet done 
a more courageous, manly thing than John did when he 
rebuked Herod? It was no reed shaken by the wind which 
Herod saw before him. As John was the Elijah of the New 
Testament, so Herod was its Ahab, and Herodias its Jezebel; 
and Elijah's mission to that weak and wicked king was not 
more perilous or courageous than that of John to the other, 
no less wicked and vacillating. Whether Herod's vain 
curiosity, which afterward made him desire to see Jesus, caused 
him to send for John, or whether John strode into his court 
with the abruptness of his prototype, we do*not know, but it 
is recorded that "when Herod heard him he was much per- 
plexed, and heard him gladly." It is dangerous to be a hearer 
of the word and not a doer. There sometimes comes with the 
hearing and the acquiescence of conscience to the truth, so 
virtuous a feeling in view of the perception of the truth, that 
it almost passes for the performance of it. Meantime Herodias 
nurses her wrath, and her daughter dances. 

So, as Elijah had his juniper tree, John had his Doubting 
Castle. Do not try to explain away the doubt. It was real 
and intense. Great natures like his are capable of being rocked 
between tumultuous emotions. John, who had nerved himself 
for whatever might come, who expected to see his own popu- 
larity wane, and was willing to be unnoticed or forgotten, 
could not bear unmoved the enforced inactivity, the prolonged 
uncertainty, the alternating hope and fear which his incarcera- 
tion in the castle of Machasrus involved, while a sword keener 
and more finely hung than that of Damocles was suspended 
above him; and the new Messiah seemed either to have for- 
gotten the forerunner to whom he owed in such large measure 
his favorable reception, or else to be unable to help him. It 
was not simply for his disciples' sake that John sent to Jesus 
to ask, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for 
another?" John himself needed the assurance of Jesus' answer. 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 201 

And probably he then died, disappointed but trusting. There 
must have come to him at times grave doubts, awful misgiv- 
ings, feelings of unutterable despondency, when it seemed that 
his whole mission had failed. Yet, there was the memory 
of Jesus' holy life and the descent of the Spirit and the preach- 
ing of the gospel to the poor; he must trust. So John held 
on in the darkness till God reached down and took the hand 
that was almost numb with long clinging in the storm and 
cold, and took him home. 

Luke changes the order of events in this narrative that we 
may have as the closing scene in this connection, not the doubt 
and death of John, but the baptism of Jesus, as the fitting 
close of John's ministry. So he tells us between the acts of 
John's imprisonment, and then brings the ministry of John to 
a dramatic close when he baptized Jesus, and witnessed the 
descent of the Spirit. It was the sign for which John had been 
waiting. His acquaintance with Jesus and his confession of 
his own unworthiness to baptize him, made it easy to believe 
that it was he whom God had called; and when the Spirit 
descended upon him, John saw it, and heard the voice and 
believed. Then he pointed his disciples to him as the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Day by day, 
without regret, he saw his audiences growing smaller and 
those of Jesus growing larger. Though Jesus was most con- 
siderate of his feelings, it must have been hard for John cheer- 
fully to live up to his own ideal, and be content to decrease that 
Jesus might increase — yet nobly he did it. He was not the 
bridegroom, but his friend; and the friend of the bridegroom 
rejoiced. Noble man! Among those that have been born of 
women his superior hath not been seen for courage, for devo- 
tion, for unostentatious fidelity. He was a burning and a 
shining light, and he went out, but not as a torch, in smoke 
and darkness; his was the light of the morning star, which 
shines on somewhere, though to us its light is lost in the 
greater effulgence of the Sun of whose rising it is the harbinger. 

God raises up special men for special times. There is ever 
a man sent from God, whose name redeems history just when 



202 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

all seems lost. No good work fails. A man's methods may 
be outgrown, and the ends for which he labors drop from popu- 
lar view, yet the man's cause may gloriously succeed. The 
ship is sometimes as truly making toward port, and utilizing 
every league that it has gained, when sailing on an entirely 
different tack. A man's cause may seem to die with him, yet 
he, being dead, still speak. Fidelity is true success. Faith, 
hope, love, courage, sincerity, can never really fail. A man 
is not always the best judge of his own success. More than 
one man sent from God has died saying, "I am not the light, 
but only a witness," of whom God says, "He was a bright and 
shining light." God bless all who do the work of John in the 
world — and their name is legion — mothers whose unseen toil 
will bear fruit in the service their children render to the world; 
wives who stay by the stuff, but whose husbands' success in 
life is in large part due to their fidelity and love, and all who 
labor casting bread upon the waters and who never see it 
return, and know not that on distant shores it feeds some ship- 
wrecked soul! Let us remember how full the world is of 
service devoted and unselfish and true, and thank God and take 
courage. 

It is characteristic of Christianity that its face is ever to the 
future. It has a splendid history, but it does not rely upon 
that history for its present power, nor is it as a deposit of 
historic truth that chiefly it is to be studied. It has a glorious 
past, but the past is not the sphere of its greatest glory. It 
points backward indeed to Eden and Sinai and Golgotha and 
Olivet, but only that it may beckon men forward to the 
redeemed society of earth and the transformed and glorified 
multitude of heaven. There is no limit set to the possibility 
of the future glory of the Christian life. Eye hath not seen it: 
ear hath not heard it; it hath not entered into the mind of the 
past. John, great and noble as he is, is not the prophet of the 
future. Not "Back to John," nor "Back to the Fathers," nor 
"Back to the Old Testament," nor even "Back to Christ," 
should be our motto, but Forward with Christ. 



THE DOUBT OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 



203 



Nearly a year passed with John in prison. John had brougnt 
down on himself the wrath of Herod for his fidelity to truth 
and righteousness. A merry dancer pleased the king, and he 
gave her John the Baptist's head. But John rose from the 
dead before the troubled conscience of Herod, who heard of 
the work of Jesus and remembered his sin — but did not 
forsake it. 




THE BURIAL OF JESUS — (lUCIO MASSARI, 1569-1633) 



CHAPTER XVIII 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 

From the middle of the summer of the year A. D. 28, we find 
a new group among- the followers of Jesus. They accompanied 
him on his second preaching tour, and "ministered to him of 
their substance" (Luke 8: 1-3). These are said to have been 
healed by him, and they followed him in gratitude, and with 
loyalty, that, in the case of some of them, ceased not to the 
end. Three are mentioned at the outset, Susanna, and Joanna, 
the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, which shows how near 
already Christianity had come to the palaces of the realm, and 
foremost of all, Mary of Magdala, the most slandered woman 
of history. She had been insane, and Jesus had healed her. 
There is not the slightest reason to believe that she had ever 
been a harlot, and the chapter heading of Luke 7 is an illus- 
tration of wisdom beyond what is written. All we know of 
her past is that she had suffered this terrible malady, and had 
been healed by Jesus. This is insufficient ground for assuming 
that she had led a wanton life. She disappears from sight after 
this first reference till near the end, but she appears at the 
crucifixion as one who had been present much of the time in 
the interval, devotedly following Jesus, with a faithful com- 
pany of her friends (Matt. 27: 55-61; 28: 1). 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, appears in the narrative during 
this same summer. She had come over from Nazareth with 
her other children, full of solicitude for her Son, whom rumor 
declared to have gone mad. Joseph was doubtless dead, for 
Mary and her children had come alone. It was a ten hours' 
walk from Nazareth to Capernaum, and the family was late 
in arriving. The crowd was so large that they could not gain 
entrance to the house. They sent in a request that he would 

204 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



205 



come to them. But Jesus had outgrown home restraint. He 
could not now submit to the restriction of those who misun- 
derstood him. His relations were with the world at large. 
"Whosoever shall do the will of my Father in heaven, he is 
my brother, and sister, and mother," he said. It was essen- 
tially the same answer he had made when a woman in the 




THE VIRGIN ADORING THE CHILD — (CORREGGIO, I494-I534) 



crowd cried out her expression of the supreme honor that must 
belong to her who had borne and nursed him, and he replied, 
"Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and 
keep it." This apparent disowning of his kindred must have 
seemed hard to them, and it is not easy for us to interpret 
otherwise, but we may be sure that it was the expression of 
sincere affection, though of a broader and more inclusive kind 



206 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



than his relatives understood. "Neither did his brethren be- 
lieve in him" at the outset, but he won them to himself and 
his cause, and the "brethren of the Lord" were among his 
truest followers afterward (John 7: 3, 6; I. Cor. 9: 5; Gal. 1: 19; 
Acts 1: 14). Mary, too, his mother, who had kept and pon- 
dered many things in her heart, left her home in Nazareth 
and followed him to the end. His dying care was to provide 




THE MADONNA OF THE CARPEXTER SHOP — ( DAGNAN-BOUVRET) 

for her as he hung on the cross, near which she stood with 
her sister, and with Mary Magdalene (John 19: 25-27). Faith- 
ful to the end, she trusted even after the crucifixion, and was 
with the company in the upper room during the forty days 
(Acts 1 : 14), among the women friends of Jesus. Earliest, 
dearest, most loving and best loved of these friends, was Mary, 
his mother. 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



207 



Mention of these three Marys, his mother, his aunt, and 
she of Magdala, reminds us at once of Mary of Bethany. We 
do not know whether she and Martha were numbered as yet 
among his friends. The incident recorded by Luke in which 




MADONNA AND CHILD — (aLBRECHT DURER, I507) 

Martha fretted because Mary was not helping her (Luke 10: 
38-42), is not very definitely fixed in its chronology, but would 
seem to belong in the visit of Jesus to Jerusalem the following 
December. Even so, it is by no means certain that Jesus had 



208 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



not already been their guest. There had been abundant oppor- 
tunity for visits to Bethany in his early Judsean ministry, and 
on the occasion of his more recent week in Jerusalem at the 
passover. The sisters lived at Bethany, and so we do not see 
them with the Galilaean group of women, but we cannot forget 
them. 




CHRIST TAKING LEAVE OF HIS MOTHER — (DURER, 1511) 

No doubt Mary and Martha represent different types of 
Christian life. Mary appears the more intellectual, Martha the 
more practical; Mary has been counted the more spiritual, but 
I am not certain that this judgment is correct. Both lacked 
perspective for their faith. Each was limited in her sphere of 
vision, Mary by the opportunity to learn of Jesus — she saw 
him so seldom and there was so much to learn — and Martha 
by the necessity of caring properly for him, and perhaps also 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



209 



by her temperament. Martha was sensitive; she was shut out 
of the world of intellectual realities and higher companionships, 
which world was very real to Mary. Not more did she fret, I 
imagine, about doing more than her share of the work, than 
because her practical mind and the daily round of domestic care 
had left her little opportunity of sharing what Mary so en- 
joyed. Martha has been used for a foil for Mary for something 




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more than eighteen centuries. It is time to appeal from judg- 
ment that has been rashly made. Martha, too, had a deep 
spiritual nature, as we shall yet learn. It is quite too much to 
censure her because once she fretted over too much house- 
work. It is not easy to be a Christian over a hot stove. If 
every woman missed heaven who at some time has grown 
impatient over the vexations of having to be both cook and 



210 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

hostess, heaven would be a lonely place. I admire the intellect- 
ual ardor of the modern Mary, who will have knowledge 
though the heavens fall and the cookies burn; but my heart 
goes out to Martha in the kitchen, flurried and fluttered lest 
all may not go well, but broiling the steak to a turn. Martha's 
theology may be defective, but three times a day I prefer her 
to Mary. And I maintain that spirituality is consistent with 
the ability to make bread. The Lord's words to Martha were 
a rebuke but a kind one. They appear to have meant some- 




MAGDALA 



thing like this: "Martha, you embarrass me and tire yourself 
with your excess of kindness. Do not worry. And let Mary 
learn her lesson — both you and she will need it for your com- 
fort. The supreme thing in life is not bread, but food for the 
soul, and that Mary is seeking." 

Blessed be Mary! She is active and numerous in the modern 
church, and the church is blessed by her activity. She teaches 
in the Sunday-school; she is a member of the Missionary 
Society; she writes papers on the work in Japan and darkest 
Africa; we need her and love her and believe in her. But 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



211 



blessed also be Martha, who looketh well to the ways of her 
household and eateth not of the bread of idleness. Jesus loved 
them both, and they were both honorable and useful. 

We have called thus to mind a few of the women friends of 
Jesus, and they are a noble company. Very different women 
they were, with different causes for affection, but loyal, 
devoted, thankful — the sisters and forerunners of that splendid 




JESUS AT BETHANY — (hOFMANN, 1 824 — ) 



company of women that for nineteen centuries has blessed the 
Church and the world. But there are others, less intimately 
associated with Jesus, who profited by his friendship. 
Among them is the woman, supposed without reason to have 
been Mary Magdalene, who came in uninvited at the feast of 
Simon the Pharisee, and annointed Jesus' feet, washing them 
with her tears and wiping them with her hair (Luke 7: 36-50). 
The Pharisee host knew her reputation, but not her penitence; 



212 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



her shame was public, but not her sorrow. The woman, whom 
good men had spurned and bad men had trampled lower, went 
forth from the presence of Jesus, forgiven and blessed. 

There was another woman who came to Jesus in that sum- 
mer at Capernaum — she who touched the hem of Christ's gar- 
ment. This woman had spent her all upon physicians, and was 
nothing better but rather worse. I believe it. From contem- 
porary documents we know what physicians were accustomed 
to prescribe for that trouble, and it reminds us of the suffering 




THE READING MAGDALEN — (CORREGGIO) 



of women through the ages with their own pains and those 
of coming generations, while the help of men is often little 
better than a mockery. 

No wonder the poor woman was worse rather than better. 
No wonder the Jews had a proverb, "Live not in a city whose 
chief is a medical man," and another "The best among doctors 
deserves Gehenna ' Physicians had their value even then. 
Their knowledge and skill were quite abreast of the age. But 
alas for the poor woman! The only comforting fact for her was 
that, having no more monev, she was through with them. 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



213 



This poor woman came to Jesus ceremonially unclean, empty 
of purse, and ashamed to describe her trouble. She crept up 
in the crowd and touched the hem of his garment. Every 
pious Jew obeyed the injunction in Numbers 15: 38, 39, and 
wore upon his garment a fringe and cord of blue. She touched 




JESUS, MARY AND MARTHA — (SCHONHERR, 1824 — ) 



this; it was a mere superstition, if we please to call it so, for 
the cloth had no merit; or it was a beautiful act of faith, if we 
are able to see things as Jesus did. Jesus called her "Daugh- 
ter," though she probably was old enough to have been his 
mother. No woman likes to be considered old. Jesus was a 
gentleman. The healing and the gracious words alike wrought 



214 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



lasting blessing to the poor woman, to whom some men in her 
own generation, and certainly the social custom of the time, 
exhibited scant courtesy, and perhaps even less real sympathy. 

She only touched the hem of his garment 

As to his side she stole, 
Amid the crowd that gathered around him, 

And straightway she was whole. 

He turned with "Daughter, be of good comfort, 

Thy faith hath made thee whole," 
And peace that passeth all understanding 

With gladness filled her soul. 



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THE FEAST AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE — (RUBENS) 

The disciples wondered that the Master should be conscious 
of a touch amid the pressure of the crowd on every side, but 
this was not really so wonderful as it seemed to them. The 
wonder is not the Master's perception, but the woman's faith. 
It would have been amazing if he had not recognized the timid 
yet hopeful touch of the hem of his Jewish robe. If any reader 
of this chapter has ever passed through the streets of a great 
city in the midst of a Christmas crowd, leading a little child, 
his own child, pressing close upon him and attempting to fol- 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



215 



low his lead, he has recognized the vast difference between the 
little one's attempt to arrest his attention and the purposeless 
surging of the multitude. It may be a very little touch, a tug 
at the coat, a chubby hand clasping a single finger, in fear lest 
the father may get too far ahead, or an effort to turn him aside 
for a moment to gaze into a window; but amid all the pushing 
and thronging the father recognizes the touch of the hand 
that belongs to his own little one. 

There were thousands of people who thronged Christ in the 




THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS — (ALEX. GOLZ) 



multitude, but not many who touched him. The woman was 
probably not the only sick person in the crowd, but she was 
the one that found healing through her faith. We sometimes 
get and give wrong impressions as to Christ's success with 
men. We note, with genuine satisfaction, how he discovered 
the hidden goodness in men and women and brought it to the 
surface. Men who sometimes were thought unworthy and 
hardly worth saving were found by him in all their possession 
of latent better qualities. Jesus was the discoverer of the bet- 
ter nature of men. Matthew never knew himself to be capable 



2l6 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



of anything but the business of a publican until Christ found 
him and enabled him to write a gospel. Simon Peter sup- 
posed himself a fisherman for life until Jesus discovered the 
real greatness of his character. Zacchseus was considered a 
disreputable citizen, and had a rather grim determination to 
earn his reputation, until Jesus discovered in him the elements 
of a noble and benevolent man. All this we are glad to re- 
member about our Lord and the men for whom he labored, for 




JESUS AMONG THE PHARISEES — (jEAN BERAUD) 

the remembering of such truths as these reflects honor not 
only to him but on the people among whom he lived. 

And yet this is only half the truth. Large numbers of men 
knew Jesus and despised him because he was a carpenter. They 
heard him speak and turned away when they saw some Phari- 
see sneer; they felt their hearts burn within them, but delayed 
their invitation and he was gone. Multitudes jostled him in 
the crowd here and there, few touched him. 

The case is not wholly different to-day. We are brought, all 
of us, into possible personal relations with Jesus; indeed we 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



217 



can hardly escape him. Where shall a man go in Christendom 
and be away from Christ? To what pursuit shall he give him- 
self and wholly forget the Man of Nazareth? Shall he plunge 
into law, business or politics? The words of Christ have be- 
come axioms in these professions. Shall he go into music, 
architecture or art? The great canvases are eloquent concern- 




THE WOMAN AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE 
(SCHOOL OF GIOTTO, I276-I33C) 



ing him; the noblest anthems peal forth his praise; the most 
superb architectural achievements rear their arches and lift 
their towering spires to heaven in his name. If he would go 
to literature his case would be no better, for what great book 
does he read that does not by its contents or contrast suggest 
the Christ? 

But these things after all may make only a jostling crowd 
in which one ever is near to Christ but never touches him. 



2i8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The man who feels in his heart the need he has of healing may 
content himself with the mere feeling, and, having received 
of the effects of the religion of Christ, may fail of that real pos- 
session of his spirit, without which there is no vital Christian- 
ity. In one case there is the mere surging of the crowd, and 
in the other, if we will have it so, there is the striving and the 
seeking which bring with them the healing and the blessing. 
With those who lived a long time ago, close personal con- 
tact is impossible. How little we know of Jesus! We have a 
fifteen minutes' report of one sermon, and as long a talk with 
his disciples, and a good many incidents, brief and more or 
less incomplete. The Bible does not pretend to give us his biog- 
raphy. We have no picture of him. We have no trustworthy 
description of his appearance. He lived in a time which has 
to be interpreted to us. We need to have explained to us the 
customs of home life and business, of weddings and funerals 
and feasts, to understand the incidents and parables which are 
given us. We know but a few facts of his earthly life, and 
come at these indirectly, and have to translate them into our 
modern language and forms of thought. We touch but the 
hem of his garment, yet the world is healed with the touch. 
It is true to-day as Whittier wrote: 

The healing of the seamless dress 

Is by our beds of pain; 
We touch him in life's throng and press, 

And we are whole again. 

There was another woman whom we should remember if not 
as a friend of Jesus at least as one who counted him her 
friend — the mother of the young man whom the Lord restored 
to life during this same summer. 

On the northwestern edge of "Little Hermon," where it 
slopes down into the Plain of Esdraelon, stands the little vil- 
lage of Nain, composed of a pitiful collection of mud hovels. 
While it does not appear ever to have been a walled city, it 
was once larger than it is now, and a place of more importance, 
as its rubbish heaps witness. The village is approached by a 
rough and steep path, which appears to have been unchanged 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



219 



since the days of Jesus; and in the midst of the village stands a 
rude little mosque, apparently occupying the site of an earlier 
Christian church, and called "The place of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

To the west of the village of Nain, and on the left as one 
approaches it from Capernaum, are rock-hewn tombs, many of 




THE SON OF THE WIDOW OF NAIN — (h. HOFMANN, 1824 ) 

them ancient. The traveler entering the village from the 
north has the whole scene brought vividlv to his imao-ination — 
the bier and funeral procession wending its slow and sad way 
down this rocky path; the Lord meeting it at the entrance to 
the narrow street, and halting the procession to recall to life 
the widow's son. 



220 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



In Palestine the dead were buried as quickly as possible, and 
the whole neighborhood joined in the burial service. The 
graves were outside the cities, and were treated with respect. 
The body was carried on a bier or in an open coffin, and borne 
by neighbors who changed frequently to afford opportunity to 
a larger number to participate. In Judaea the musicians and 
hired mourners would have preceded the body, but in Galilee 
they followed, as here described. The women came immedi- 
ately behind the bier, since according to an old Jewish saying, 




THE VILLAGE OF NAIN 



woman brought death into the world, and thus should lead in 
the procession to the grave. On the way to the grave the 
procession frequently halted to listen to brief addresses, and at 
the grave there was often a funeral oration. Along the way 
the hired mourners rent the air with their cries. 

Whoever met a funeral procession was expected to turn and 
join it. Instead, our Lord halted it. Among the dishevelled 
women with their mercenary grief, he recognized instantly her 
whose sorrow was real, and addressed her with the sympathetic 
words, "Weep not." No voice that ever fell on human ears 



i 



THE WOMEN FRIENDS OF JESUS 



221 



was so potent to dry tears; but how could she cease to weep? 
for the dead was her only son, and she a widow. It is impos- 
sible to tell the story in words as simple, picturesque and beau- 
tiful as those of the Gospel narrative. 

"And he came and touched the bier; and the bearers stood 
still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise. And 
he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he gave 
him to his mother" (Luke 7: 14-16). 

Only once in Scripture is Nain mentioned, and that in this 
passage. It is quite distinct from the Nain mentioned by 




CHRIST AT THE HOUSE OF LAZARUS — (SIEMIRADSKY, 1834 — ) 



Josephus (B. J. IV. ix:4), which was on the other side of the 
Jordan. The recorded visit of Jesus occurred in the summer of 
A. D. 28, on the day after the healing of the nobleman's son 
in Capernaum. Jesus probably passed through the village on 
some of his journeys, but we have no record of the fact. 

This single incident gives Nain a beauty that even its pres- 
ent squalor and filth cannot wholly destroy. Here our Lord 
brought comfort from sorrows, and life from death. The com- 
fort that came to the heart of the widow of Nain has come with 
his gospel down the ages and flooded the sorrowing world 
with hope. 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 

Early in the second autumn of his ministry, Jesus began a 
new system of instruction. At the outset he had taken John's 
text, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," and his preaching 
had been propositional and didactic, as is shown by the sermon 
on the mount. Now it became illustrative and suggestive. 
The parable became his customary method of teaching. On 
the first day on which he is declared to have spoken parables 
he seems to have delivered seven or eight of those that are 
preserved in the gospels. 

No teacher ever employed the parable so naturally, so forci- 
bly, or so effectively as Jesus. He used the things of common 
life to illustrate its deepest spiritual truths. As he spoke, the 
material for his illustrations was all about him. The fields 
close at hand illustrated the four kinds of soil of the sower, and 
showed where tares as well as wheat had grown. Mustard 
seed, sown in the spring had grown into great herbs with birds 
singing within hearing while he spoke. Merchants in the little 
city close at hand were buying or selling their wares; and fish- 
ermen near by were casting their nets, or sorting their fish. 
Jesus did not go far away for his material, and from this time 
on "without a parable spake he not unto them" (Mark 4: 34). 

The effect of these parables was as various as that of the 
seed in the parable of the sower. Some heard the parables with 
delight, but obtained no spiritual benefit therefrom; some 
thought them obscure, and heard with their ears but did not 
understand with their hearts; some felt the, rebuke of them, but 
were too sinful or full of prejudice to heed their truth; and 
some eagerly grasped the truth, and were new men and women 
from that day on. 

222 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 



223 



The eight parables grouped in this one report are, first, the 
sower, illustrating the various effects of the preaching of the 
Gospel; then that of the wheat and the tares, showing the 
admixture of the good and the evil in the world as Jesus found 
it; then the seed that grew day and night, illustrating the pro- 
gressive stages of the spiritual life, the blade, the ear and the 
full corn in the ear; then the mustard seed, illustrating the 



1 



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~'^K^". 



THRESHING FLOOR IN PALESTINE 



growth of the kingdom from little to great; then the leaven, 
illustrating the method and principle of that growth in the 
individual heart and in the world; then the treasure hid in the 
field, and the pearl of great price, illustrating the supreme 
value of the kingdom of God; and finally, the drag-net, illus- 
trating the inevitable division among those who hear and seem 
to heed the word, but not all of whom prove faithful. There 
were parables of fact and of method— parables of encourage- 



224 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

ment and of warning — parables of promise of the coming of 
the kingdom, which show his marvelous confidence that the 
seed sown in the rocky soil of Galilee would overshadow the 
nations, and that the leaven in the hearts of the little com- 
pany of his followers, would yet leaven the whole lump. This 
was a wonderful series of lessons, and when it was finished the 
congregation was astonished at his doctrine, and he was weary 
in body and in brain. 

From this time till the end of his ministry the teaching of 
Jesus was chiefly by parable. The propositional form of instruc- 
tion was chiefly employed thenceforth for the answering of 
questions. The parable, simple, illustrative, and yielding hid 
treasure to the seeker, was so constantly employed that "with- 
out a parable spake he not unto them." 

On the afternoon of the same busy day on which he uttered 
his first recorded parables, Jesus crossed the lake and was over- 
taken by a storm on the way, and the tempest ceased at his 
command. In the morning they came "to the other side, into 
the country of the Gergesenes." Here two demoniacs were 
healed, and the herd of swine ran down into the sea. The 
people, fearful lest his visit should bring them harm, requested 
him "to depart out of their coasts," and he withdrew (Matt. 
8: 23-34; Mark 5: 1-20; Luke 8: 26-39). This occurred "in the 
county of the Gadarenes," or "Gerasenes," in the region oppo- 
site Capernaum, known as Decapolis. Jesus repeatedly crossed 
the sea to this region, and here early had disciples. His actual 
ministry, however, was limited by the opposition of the people 
awakened by the loss of the swine. 

Decapolis was a region named from its ten cities, which 
Pliny tells us were Scythopolis, Hippos, Gardara, Pella, Phila- 
delphia, Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Damascus, and Raphana. The 
region included all Bashan and Gilead. The ten cities were 
a 1 .lied for purposes of defense and trade, as wre many similar 
groups in the Roman Empire. It is probable that Greeks 
made up a considerable part of the population of the colony, 
as the presence of swine would indicate. Swine are compara- 
tively uncommon in Palestine to-day, but T saw a few on the 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 



225 



shore of the Sea of Galilee, not far from the place where the 
herd ran down, and their presence at once suggested the nar- 
rative. Few travelers go far into Decapolis, and those who do 




JESUS TEACHING IN THE SYNAGOGUE 
(COR WIN KNAPP LIN SON) 

(courtesy OF s. s. m'clure CO.) 

soon leave behind religious associations. There are abundant 
reminders of early Roman power. Among the ruins of ancient 
cities the inhabitants, manv of them Circassian colonists, dig 



226 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

for coins, pottery and glass, and build into the walls of their 
huts carved stones and mosaics of two thousand years ago. 

The scenes of Biblical interest, however, lie near the lake 
shore, in a region whose hills look barren and uninviting com- 
pared to those of the Galilee side, and where the swine could 
have choice of several excellent places for their descent. 

In the winter of A. D. 28-9, Jesus went about on his third 
preaching tour (Matt. 9:35; Mark 6:6). It is probable that 
this tour brought him again to Nazareth, and that, while not 
threatened with personal violence as before, he met indiffer- 
ence and contempt. His mighty works aroused some wonder, 

but little real faith (Matt. 13 154-58; Mark 6: 1-6). 

Jesus understood well by this time the certain opposition 

that awaited him, and the feeble assistance that he could 
expect from many of his professed followers. He talked sternly 
to several half-hearted disciples, who, on one pretext or 
another, sought delay or excuse (Matt. 8: 18-22; Luke 9: 51- 
60). Because of the urgency of his work now, and also its 
inevitable limitations, he could attempt nothing more than a 
mission to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and this 
would call for the utmost efforts of himself and his disciples. 
The harvest was great and the laborers were few. 

Few indeed they were. John, the heroic herald, was near 
the end of his life, still in prison, and soon to die. Jesus him- 
self would not have long to work. He had few friends whom 
he could depend upon; but he called the twelve whom he had 
chosen four or five months before, and sent them out in pairs 
on independent preaching tours. They must soon be left to 
work in the world, and it was none too soon for them to be 
learning how; so he sent them forth (Mat. 9:36; n: 1; Mark 
6: 7-13; Luke 9: 1-6). 

All the disciples had now been for six months, and several 
of them for a much longer period, under the instruction of 
Jesus. They were now to go forth and teach others what they 
had learned. It was a double advantage for them to do this, 
for in teaching they learned while they were imparting. He 
is a poor teacher who does not learn more than any of his 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 



227 



pupils. The apostles were learning how to teach the world — 
and they learned. 

It is well, doubtless, for us to drop the title "Saint," without 
which many good people do not speak or write the names of 
the apostles or evangelists, and speak of them familiarly as 
"Peter," Matthew," "James" and "John." But they were 




JESUS STILLING THE TEMPEST — (DORE, 1833-1883) 



saints, nevertheless, albeit very human and imperfect saints. 
How great is our debt to them! Had they failed to remember 
and repeat the words of Jesus, we should hardly have heard of 
him; had they forsaken him when the multitudes left him, we 
could hardly have believed in him. There is a real apostolic 
succession, that of the spirit; for we are built on the founda- 



22$ JESUS OF NAZARETH 

tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
the chief corner-stone. These men treasured the words of Jesus 
even when it is evident that they did not understand them. 
Some of these utterances are so terse and epigrammatic that 
once heard they are ever remembered; the apostles thus 
remembered and recorded them. Some are of such profound 
wisdom that no man could have invented them; the apostles 
wrote them and the world is enriched. Some are so astounding" 
that no one but Jesus would have dared to utter them; the 
apostles recorded them, and history has verified the words. 

John tells us that, though his Gospel was added as a supple- 
ment to the others, it is far from completing the account of the 
life of Christ. He tells us that there are many other things 
which Jesus did, and doubtless said, not recorded in the Gos- 
pels. The question has often been asked whether we have any of 
these words of Jesus, unrecorded by the evangelists. Certainly 
we have one of them, Paul tells us to "Remember the words of 
the Lord Jesus, how he saith, It is more blessed to give than 
to receive." These words are not found in the Gospels. They 
were doubtless familiar to the disciples, however, for Paul's 
use of them implies previous knowledge. Either they were 
treasured in memory and transmitted orally, or they existed 
in some collection of detached "Logia" or "sayings," of Jesus. 
There is a good deal of reason to believe that such a collection 
of "sayings" existed. A few years ago a papyrus leaf, discov- 
ered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, and dating from the earliest 
Christian centuries, seemed to bring down to us a scrap of such 
a collection. Besides this, the early Church fathers preserved 
several alleged "sayings" of Jesus. 

There is no inherent improbability in the genuineness of 
these sayings. They are as likely to be authentic as sayings of 
Socrates or C?esar similarly preserved. The sources from which 
they come to us are not uniformly trustworthy, and the "say- 
ings" vary in value. Many of them are mere varieties or en- 
largements of words from the Gospels. The whole collection 
shows us how poor and incomplete would be our knowledge 
of the words of Jesus if we had to trust to these extra Biblical 
sources. 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 



22Q 



From about sixty such "sayings" that have been culled out 
of early writings by modern scholars, I have selected the fol- 
lowing list, containing the best of these sayings, and those 
that rest on the best evidence. 

i. Remember the words (logon) of the Lord Jesus, how he 
saith, It is more blessed to give than to receive. — Acts 20: 35. 




THE HAND TO THE PLOW 



2. Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth 
and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his 
shame. — Rev. 16: 15. 

3. On the same day, having seen one working on the Sab- 
bath, he said to him, O man, if indeed thou knowest what thou 
doest, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art 
cursed, and art a transgressor of the law. — A remarkable addi- 
tion to Luke 4: 4 found in one ancient MS., the Codex Bezse, 



230 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

called Codex D, which dates from about 500 A. D. The quota- 
tion appears to be still more ancient than the manuscript. 

4. In whatsoever state I find you, in that will I also judge 
you. — Justin Martyr, who died about 166. 

5. Ask for that which is great, and that which is little shall 
be added unto you. — Clement of Alexandria, about 200 A. D. 

6. Prove yourselves tried money changers. — Clement of 
Alexandria and others. 

7. The Son of God saith, Let us resist all iniquity, and hold 
it in hatred. 

8. Thus he saith, Those who wish to see me and lay hold 
on my kingdom must receive me by affliction and suffering. — 
Barnabas. 

9. But ye seek to increase from little, and from greater to 
be less. — Codex Bezse, called Codex D., after Matt. 20: 28; 
also the Latin and Syriac versions. 

10. Woe to him who has saddened his brother's spirit. — 
Gospel of the Hebrews, now lost but once highly valued in the 
Church; this fragment is quoted by Jerome who died 420. 

11. Never be joyful save when you look upon your brother 
in love. — Gospel of Hebrews, quoted by Jerome. 

12. He that wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall 
rest. Look with wonder at that which is before you. — Clement 
of Alexandria. 

13. I came to put an end to sacrifices, and unless ye cease 
from sacrificing, God's anger will not cease from you. — Gospel 
of the Ebionites, supposed to have been a variation of Mat- 
thew. The sect disappeared in the fourth century. This pas- 
sage is quoted by Epiphanius, about 367, A. D. He died 403. 

14. Jesus saith to his disciples, Ask great things and the 
small shall be added unto you; and ask heavenly things and 
the earthly shall be added unto you. — Origen, who died 253. 

15. The Saviour himself saith, He who is near me is near 
the fire; and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom. 
— Origen. 

16. The Lord says, Keep the flesh pure, and the seal 
unspotted, that ye may receive eternal life. — Clement of Rome, 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 



231 



supposed to have been mentioned by Paul in Phil. 4: 3; wrote 
his epistle about 97. 

17. Jesus saith, For those that are sick I was sick, and for 
those that hunger I suffered hunger, and for those that thirst 
I suffered thirst. — Origen. 

18. It was not through unwillingness to impart his bless- 
ings that the Lord announced in some Gospel or other: My 
mystery is for me and the sons of my house. We remember 



r* 






A FAMILIAR SCENE IN PALESTINE 

our Lord and Master how he said to us: Keep my mysteries 
for me and the sons of my house. — Clement of Alexandria. 

19. I will select to myself those things: Very, very excel- 
lent are those whom my Father in heaven has given to me. — 
Quoted from Eusebius, about 325, from "The Gospel existing 
among the Jews in the Hebrew Tongue." 

20. Peter says that the Lord said to his apostles: Should 
then any one of Israel be willing to repent, so as to believe 



232 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

upon God through my name, his sins shall be forgiven him. 
After twelve years go ye out into the world, lest anyone say, 
"We did not hear." — Clement of Alexandria. 

21. There are also a number of ancient additions to inci- 
dents in the Gospels, with amplifications of the words of Jesus 
as there recorded. Such additions are most easily accounted 
for of all textual variations, and are generally to be distrusted, 
the rule of textual critics being to prefer the shorter reading. 
One of the most ancient and least improbable of these is found 
in Clement of Rome, where Peter answers Jesus, saying: "Ye 
shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves," with the question, 
"But what if the wolves tear the lambs?" and Jesus answers, 
"Let the lambs not fear that the wolves can hurt them after 
they are dead; and do not fear those that kill you and can do 
no more to you, but fear him who, after you are dead, hath 
power over soul and body to cast them into hell." 

22. The only similar addition that seems worth quoting is 
an insertion in the story of the rich young man. "The Lord 
saith to him: How sayest thou, I have kept the law and the 
prophets, for it is written in the law, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself, and lo, there are many brothers of thine, sons 
of Abraham, covered with dung and dying with hunger, and 
thy house full of many good things, and yet not one goes out 
from it to them. — Gospel to the Hebrews, as quoted by 
Origen. 

23. To this interesting list may be added, with strong pos- 
sibility that they are among the "many other things" that 
Jesus said, the "sayings" recorded on the ancient papyrus leaf 
discovered in 1897 in the ruins of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt: 

a. The first is a part of the saying found in Matthew 7: 5: 
"And then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is 
in thy brother's eye." 

b. "Jesus saith, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in 
no wise find the kingdom of God: and except ye keep the Sab- 
bath, ye shall not see the Father." 

c. "Jesus saith, I stood in the midst of the world, and in 
the flesh was I seen of them, and T found all men drunken, and 



THE GREAT TEACHER AND HIS PUPILS 



233 



none have I found athirst among them; and my soul grieveth 
over the sons of men because they are blind in their heart." 

d. "* * * * poverty * * * *" 

e. "Jesus saith, Wherever they are * * and there is one 
* * alone, I am with him. Raise the stone, and thou shalt 
find me. Cleave the wood, and there am I." 




EGYPTIAN PAPYRUS CONTAINING SAYINGS OF JESUS 
DISCOVERED AT OXYRHYNCHUS, 1897 

f. "Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own 
country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them that 
know him." 

g. "Jesus saith, A city built on the top of a high hill and 
established can neither fall nor be hid." 



CHAPTER XX 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 

The winter passed, and spring came again, and with it came 
a new period of popularity for Jesus, a period brief, but almost 
overwhelming. The twelve apostles on their missionary tours 
had advertised him widely. When passover time drew near, 
multitudes of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, crowded 
upon him, eager to see and hear him, and curious to witness 
some mighty work. Jesus and his disciples endured the 
throngs till they were crowded out of house and home, having 
no place or time even to eat; and then they retreated to the 
other side of the lake, to the region of Bethsaida. Here the 
multitudes followed them, and Jesus wrought the only miracle 
recorded in all four of the Gospels, the feeding of the five 
thousand. 

We have seen that there probably was a Bethsaida near 
Capernaum. There was certainly another Bethsaida, the "Beth- 
saida Julias," east of the Jordan, referred to by Josephus (Ant. 
XVIII. 2:1; 4:6; B. J. II. 9:1; III. 10:7; Life 71, 72, 73), 
and Jerome (Commentary on Matthew 16: 13). This is the 
Bethsaida of Luke 9: 10, near the "desert place" mentioned in 
Matt. 14: 13 and Mark 6: 31, where the five thousand were 
fed. George Adam Smith supposes a single town divided 
by the Jordan, but this hardly fills the necessities of the descrip- 
tion. Some of the incidents seem to require a Bethsaida near 
Capernaum on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. The 
feeding of the five thousand occurred on the eastern side, and 
as Luke 19: 10 tells us near to Bethsaida. The site of the city 
is discernible on the slope of the hills near the mouth of the 
Jordan and above it on the table land. It is a "desert place," 
that is, uncultivated, which at this season of the year would 

234 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 235 

be green with spring grass. Thus it was when I saw it in 
March, and a beautiful place for a large gathering. Later in 
the season the grass would be dried by the sun, and the place 
hot and bare. Near here, probably, also the four thousand 
were fed, and from here Jesus sailed "to the parts of Dalmanu- 
tha" in the borders of Magdala, returning "to the other side" 
to Bethsaida (Matt. 15: 32-39; Mark 8: 1-22). Here he healed 
the blind man (Mark 8: 22), first, however, leading him out of 
the village, and commanding him not to re-enter it, as he 
desired to avoid the publicity of a miracle. 

"Come ye yourselves apart unto a desert place, and rest 
awhile." So said the Master to his disciples; and both he and 
they needed a vacation. 

The Gospels suggest three reasons for this rest-time. 

The first is that Jesus had heard of the death of John the 
Baptist (Matt. 14: 13). I*n that event he doubtless recognized 
a possible danger to himself, and he was moved with a peculiar 
sorrow over the murder of his kinsman and friend. 

The second is that the apostles had returned from their 
preaching expeditions (Mark 6: 30), and doubtless needed rest, 
as well as opportunity to report to him undisturbed, and to 
receive from him instructions for future labor. 

The third is that "There were many coming and going, and 
they had no leisure so much as to eat" (Mark 6: 31). 

The presence of the crowd is explained by John, who tells 
us that the passover was at hand (John 6: 4). Jesus and his 
disciples did not attend it (John 7:1), but took that time, when 
the religious life of the nation was most intense, but when their 
own work was at a momentary halt, for needed rest. 

That our Lord did not obtain the rest he sought is no argu- 
ment against vacations. Several times during his ministry he 
withdrew himself for quiet, and the rest needed at this time 
was probably secured a few days later, when the crowds had 
passed through Galilee and were at Jerusalem. 

But vacations have their duties. The disciples did not rest 
undisturbed by obligation. There is no place on earth where 
we may escape from man's needs; no desert that is void of duty. 



236 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The disciples soon were busy. God has no heaven in which we 
shall be perpetually idle; both there and here are rest and ser- 
vice. And there is no surer test of Christian character than 
that afforded by a period of rest. 

It is only in blessed activity that the soul finds rest. "Come 
unto me, and I will give you rest," says our Lord. The relig- 
ion of Christ has little in it that can comfort a lazy Christian. 

The crowd came around the head of the lake, curious and 
exacting. It was to escape this crowd he had gone away, but 
he was moved with compassion toward the multitude (Mark 
6: 34). He was hungry himself; but it was not of his own 
hunger that he thought. He was suffering great sorrow for 
the death of a friend; but it was the sorrows of others that 
moved him. He was weary, and in need of rest; yet with 
unresting toil he gave rest to those who were weary and had 
come unto him. 

Who were this rabble, anyway? They were ready to crown 
him, or would be if he would feed them; but this very incident 
became the occasion of his teaching them truth so plain that 
they shrank from the sacrifice which his service might involve. 
"From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked 
no more with him" (John 6: 66). "From that time," of all 
times in his life! This fickle, unstable crowd, intruding upon 
his quiet, this reckless, improvident horde of curious people — 
he was moved with compassion for them! It was just a year 
before his crucifixion. Some of this same crowd of Galilsean 
pilgrims were doubtless of those that would shout, "Hosanna" 
a year hence, and, "Crucify him!" before the week was over; 
yet he had compassion upon them. 

It was the crisis of his ministry. The "year of obscurity" was 
over; the "year of popularity" was closing; the scribes and 
priests at Jerusalem were already bitterly hostile; but one thing 
could save him from their machinations, and that was a strong, 
popular following, so constant that the officials dared not 
brook it. Jesus looked upon this throng. Here were "the 
people" whom the officials feared. Could he be sure of them? 
Would they stand by him? They were eager to make him 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 



237 



king; but would they support him in the crises of his real mis- 
sion? He had never needed the support of a multitude so 
much as now. By their thronging him they were endangering 
his life unless they were ready to support him. He knew that 
they were fickle, unreliable, yet they were as sheep without a 
shepherd, and he, the Good Shepherd, taught them, weary as 
he was. He bore their sorrows, sorrowing, as lie was. He 
healed their sickness, heartsick as he was. He fed them, 
hungry as he was. He had, he has, compassion on the shep- 
herdless multitude, and seeks the lost sheep "until he finds it." 




THE MULTIPLICATION CF THE LOAVES — (m.UKILLO, 1617-1682) 

It were an easy duty to be kind to the grateful, to help the 
appreciative; to heal the useful, and to save the promising. 
But the Christian must be kind to the unthankful; the soul 
winner must labor for the hopeless; the physician must save 
the life that can never be a strong life or, so far as he can 
see, a useful one. The duty of compassion is not fulfilled by 
an easy-going sympathy that mildly wishes well; a feeling of 
compassion is needed that can move one to loving service for 
Christ's sake. Dominic the monk, moved with compassion 
for a woman whose husband was enslaved by the Moors, would 
have sold himself to redeem the prisoner. A compassion that 
bears the grief and sin of others — this is the kind that saves. 



238 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

To trust the people, to love the world, to have faith in man 
as man; all this might have seemed perilous. Yet the kingdom 
of God is also a democracy, and Jesus awaits for his ultimate 
coronation not only the will of heaven but the voluntary choice 
of men. Nor shall it fail. Fickle, unstable as men are, his love 
will win, in winning, has won them. His compassion on the 
multitude has justified itself already. And at length in the 
midst of a great multitude whom no man can number, saved 
by his compassion, we shall more than fulfil the dream of the 
Galilsean throng. By unanimous suffrage of redeemed human- 
ity we shall crown him King of kings. 

Dr. Horace Bushnell had a great sermon on the text "Give 
ye them to eat." He showed, or tried to show, that our obli- 
gation is not limited by our ability. The disciples had not the 
ability to feed the crowd, yet Christ commanded them to do 
so. Here, clearly, Dr. Bushnell affirmed, the requirement was 
greater than the power of the disciples to perform. He went 
on to show how power grows by the exercise of power, and 
how sudden strength comes with the emergency — strength 
in excess of that which we have previously possessed. Alas, 
how many people fail to undertake what they really could do if 
they thought they could! According to your faith, be it unto 
you. 

We will not dispute with Dr. Bushnell over the meaning of 
words — he himself maintained that word meanings are very 
flexible. Probably in strict use of language the contention 
would not hold. Strictly speaking, obligation is always meas- 
ured by ability. 

And the fact that God imposes a duty is assurance that God 
will furnish the strength to perform it. Blessed is he who 
believes in God and attempts the impossible! Such have been 
the men whom the world honors. Such are her discoverers, 
her inventors, her prophets. It is easy enough to show that 
the thing that ought to be done is impossible; blessed is the 
man who hears the command of God, and knows that the 
thing that ought to be can be. 

A wise man was proving to other wise men that no steamer 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 



239 



could cross the ocean, when the news came that the first 
steamer was across. A certain noted general was in the very 
act of explaining to a Congressional committee why a certain 
fort which he had been sent to attack could not be taken by the 
force at his command, when the newsboys outside began to 
shout the news of a Union victory in the fall of the very fort 




JESUS THE CHRIST — (MUNKACSY, 1846 — ) 

which he counted impregnable. Impossible the duty laid upon 
us? Then let us go and perform it. 

Already, apparently, Jesus had raised the question to Philip, 
''Where shall we buy bread?" (John 6: 5.) Apparently it was 
not an unheard-of thing for our Lord and his disciples to pro- 



2 4 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 

vide entertainment for those who came from afar. They seem 
to have been prepared for reasonable expenditure necessitated 
by a generous hospitality. 

"Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for 
them, that every one of them may take a little," said Philip. 
It is one of the few hints we have of the financial condition of 
the apostolic company. Two hundred denarii, this was Philip's 
ready calculation, about thirty dollars, but having the purchas- 
ing power of perhaps two hundred dollars. A denarius was a 
day's wages. We have no reason to suppose that our Lord 
and his apostles were living in poverty. Some of them had 
been men of some means, owning their boats and doing a good 
business. Besides, this was the time of our Lord's popularity, 
and his friends had doubtless contributed money from time to 
time. Two hundred dollars was not an excessive amount to 
have on hand for a family of thirteen in travel, but it was a 
comfortable sum. "If we should give all we have," Philip 
would seem to say, "it would give each man a morsel." The 
problem is to furnish a dinner at about four cents a plate. 
Philip was right. Yet let not the disciples withhold because 
it will take all they have. Duty sometimes requires just that, 
even though the multitude still are but partly fed. 

Sometimes, we need to remember, the Lord calls on his dis- 
ciples for the two hundred pence. He does not always work 
a miracle. We do well to figure, as Philip did, how much can 
be accomplished if we give our utmost. Yet we are never 
safe in assuming that our all is God's only resource. These 
three things avail for the feeding of the souls of men; human- 
ity's hoard of common good; the power and grace of God; and 
the contents of the individual life. 

When we have given our all, we may be sure that God will 
find a way to use us. A rich man's son offered his life to his 
country in the time of the Spanish war. He was kept at 
Chickamauga all through the war, shoeing horses. It was his 
place of service, and he gave his effort just as faithfully, just 
as heroically, as if on the battle field, and perhaps more so. 
Perhaps more so? Yes, T rather think so. It is easier for us 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 



>4I 



sometimes to fight than to shoe horses. It takes less grace, 
sometimes, to count out our two hundred pence and see it 
acknowledged in the Missionary Herald, than to see the Mas- 
ter select for signal honor the man who has no pence at all, 
but only the basket of loaves and fishes. 

To give to our Master our best, our all, and then to serve in 
the way he shows us — this is sacrifice perfected. The disciples 
were not called upon at this time to do this, but the call came 
both before and after to forsake all for his sake. On this occa- 
sion the call to give his all came to one person only — the boy 
with the basket. He gave his all — we shall see what came of it. 

"There is a lad here!" Then the case is not altogether hope- 
less! There are always wonderful possibilities in a boy. How 
often his friends talk of him as a bother, but in emergencies 
they turn to him. 

His occasional absence when needed ought to emphasize 
his convenience at other times, for no boy is always at hand, 
except be he a cripple, poor fellow! A normal, healthy boy 
must find many places to be in, and even he cannot be in many 
at once. But considering the number of the places where he 
must be, and the variety of interests which he must care for, 
it is rather surprising that he is so often at hand. 

And, oh, the errands he runs, and the wood and water he 
carries, and the potatoes he digs when the supply is short and 
dinner likely to be late — even now many a household would 
go hungry if no boy were at hand to supplement a scant meal 
by a mission to the garden or the grocery. Blessings on the 
boy, the meddlesome, noisy, thoughtless, impulsive, affection- 
ate, generous, ever-ready, indispensable boy! 

Blessed be Andrew, the discoverer of the lad with the bas- 
ket! He did not know that the boy could aid them, but no 
one knows that a boy cannot help in any given emergency. A 
boy is a creature of wonderful versatility. 

We face the problems of the future sometimes with anx- 
iety. Great and many are they, and the men on whom we have 
leaned grow old and die. But the case is not yet hopeless. 
There is a lad here, and tomorrow he will be a man! Bless 



242 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

you, my boy! All our hopes center in you! Come, let us see 
what is in your basket! 

We read of the flood in Grand Rapids a few summers since, 
and wondered why the breaking of a reservoir just at dawn, 
and the pouring of a torrent down a valley filled with houses, 
should have resulted in so little loss of life. There was a lad 
there! The newsboy, delivering his early papers and detecting 
the leak that soon was to be a yawning chasm in the wall of 
the reservoir, with a whirling flood rushing through amain, 
roused the people as he went, and saved, God only knows how 
many lives. There was a lad there, and so ten thousand peo- 
ple escaped with their lives. There was a lad there of old, and 
so five thousand people were fed. God bless the boy! 

That boy sitting beside the fire and watching the kettle 
cover as the steam lifts it, will yet invent a steam engine. That 
boy in a log cabin, defending the weak with his great strength, 
and pitying with his large heart the needy and the suffering, 
whether man or beast, shall yet free four millions of bondmen. 
And yonder boy — who knows what good he yet may do? God 
bless the boy! 

The boy as well as the disciples must have asked the ques- 
tion, "What are they among so many?" Unless, indeed, he 
never thought of the crowd. He had only enough for one, 
and what one in all the company had a better right to it? Who 
has so good a right to the boy's basket as the boy himself? 
The world has the larger claim upon your basket, my boy, and 
it is none too soon for you to learn it! 

Thank God for the basket! It is not wholly the boy's own, 
anyway. The prudence of the good mother at home pro- 
vided the loaves and the fishes. Teachers and parents and 
friends and all past ages have been filling the basket against 
the world's need. Our life is a basket and the Master needs it. 

I do not know how much that boy knew about the Master. 
I presume that he thought his basket was to provide a dinner 
for Jesus. Now, no healthy boy gives up his dinner for any- 
body without a struggle. To provide a dinner even for Jesus 
by giving of his own — and all the boys must have liked him — 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 



243 



involved a sacrifice. I am glad that it was a boy that did it. 
It was just like him. He was hungry, as boys are, but gen- 
erous, as boys are; and he loved the Master as manly boys do 
when they know and understand him. Not every boy would 




CHRIST THE COMPASSIONATE — (RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 



have done it, but no one would have been more likely to do 
it than a boy. 

"What are they among so many?" The boy does not know. 
He has done one boy's duty, and is content. Here he comes, 
blushing and eager, hungry yet happy, and Andrew leads him, 
basket and all, to the Master! A proud moment for you, my 
hungry little fellow, when the Master smiles on you! He who 



244 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

has gone hungry for the Master's sake, or that the multitude 
may be fed, begins to know the spirit of him who came to be 
the Bread of Life; and the Master's approval — oh, that the 
world could believe it is better than the bread that perishes! 

"What are they among so many?" What are Moffat's loaves 
among the degraded multitudes of Africa? Yet he breaks 
them, and thousands eat, and are filled. What are Robert 
Morrison's loaves among the millions of China? Yet multi- 
tudes hear the gospel through his efforts. Behold the teeming 
hordes of India; yonder is an unlettered shoemaker, William 
Carey. What has he in his basket for the many who hunger 
there? Be patient till the Master breaks the loaves. Now 
behold in the unlearned man, the translator of books, the 
founder of schools, the originator of industries, the creator of 
a new order of society! Unlearned, did you say? Before he 
died he was a professor of Sanskrit, Bengali, and Marathi, a 
writer of scientific articles for wise and dignified quarterlies, a 
member of learned societies in London, and much more. And 
into twenty-four languages and dialects of India he translated 
the Word of God. The Bible miracle grows small by compari- 
son. The miracles of the multiplication of the Bread of life 
are greater. 

The law of supply and demand holds in the spiritual life. 
Jesus gave the people bread because they needed it and wanted 
it. He did not give them spiritual grace, though they needed 
it, because they did not demand it. Emerson quotes God as 
saying, "What do you want? Pay for it and take it." God has 
both kinds of bread. It is a question which the people want. 

Our excessive care for the body is pathetic. Many of our 
systems of healing, whether by prayer or patent medicine, rise 
but little above the inherent vulgarity of the Egyptians' em- 
balming of the spiritless body. Bread and the circus was the 
sum of the demand of the Roman populace; the people got 
both, and Rome went down. 

"And they did eat, and were all filled." They all ate fish and 
bread — the same food that was in the basket; but more of it. 
The miracle did not change the quality. Doubtless, variety 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 245 

would have been pleasant, and would have seemed easy. But 
he who taught men to pray for daily bread was content to 
provide life's necessities. It was not that he grudged the lux- 
uries — he could make wine, on occasion, and wine, whatever 
its quality, is no necessity. But the necessities of life are the 
real needs, and should call for the deepest gratitude. 

Butter costs more than bread, and sauce more than butter. 
The luxuries increase in cost in proportion to their superfluity. 
Provisions for the real needs of men are the most abundant 
and the cheapest. 

Yet how many of us, having bread and fish, have thanked 
God with sweet content? How often we have teased him for 
superfluous things, having already abundance for life's necessi- 
ties! The people, fed by Jesus, are quite ready to quote Moses, 
and to covet manna; and no people ever grew more rebellious 
over the monotony of their food than those to whom Moses 
gave bread from heaven. 

Jesus gave them nothing better; because, first, he gave what 
was brought him; secondly, he gave what the people needed 
most; and thirdly, it was all that it was safe to give them lest 
their well-fed patriotism should cause them to rush into insur- 
rection for a King who could give cake as well as bread. 

And they were filled — until tomorrow! 

But still they were empty of the righteousness for which 
they did not even hunger and thirst, yet for which their souls 
were starving! 

The ancient Greeks lived on acorns, but when they learned 
the arts of wheat culture and bread-making, they discarded 
their former food, and lived on the better and more nutritious 
bread which they had now discovered. We have no occasion 
to despise God's temporal gifts, but every reason to be grateful 
for them. But alas for him whose hunger for the acorn is such 
that he never discovers the wheat, and a thousand times more, 
alas, for the man who fills his life with the bread of earth and 
hungers not for the Bread of heaven. 

Bread can never satisfy. A young man in Chicago cornered 
the wheat market, and owned more breadstuffs than any man 



24 6 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

since creation. He was not made happy thereby. The market 
turned and left him a poorer and a wiser man. But he who 
seeks the Bread of life, finds it. There are men who are starv- 
ing, and are in a delusion, "as when a hungry man dreameth, 
and behold he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is 
empty." But the spiritual gifts of God fail not to those who 
hunger for them. 

Whose were the baskets that were filled? We do not know. 
It is well that the miracle was unexpected, else doubtless the 
people least likely to have contributed anything to the feast 
had been there with empty baskets. It was probably those 
who had been provident and also generous who had baskets for 
the gathered bread. There was one basket at hand of which 
we know, and that, we may be sure, was filled among the rest. 
It was nearest to the place where the Master sat, for from it 
had come forth the loaves and the fishes; and it requires but 
little wisdom beyond what is written to feel sure that it was 
the first one filled. 

Ah lad, who didst give with thought of sacrifice, not hoping 
to receive again, thine now is this almost superfluous joyf 
Great had been thy pleasure, even hadst thou given and re- 
ceived not, for all thy life thou shouldst have remembered that 
thou, with the Saviour, didst feed the hungry! But this is now 
thine added joy, that more than thou gavest has come back to 
thee! 

We have read the poem of Sir Ralph the Rover and the 
Inchcape Rock; how the cruel pirate cut ofT the bell that had 
been a warning to seamen, and sailed back in after years and 
was wrecked on that same rock. We have read in a good old 
Book of men falling into the pit which they dug for the feet 
of others. We have heard the proverb that "Curses, like 
chickens, come home to roost." Poems and proverbs grow out 
of long observation, and a consensus of experience. 

On the other hand, we have heard of the rich, benevolent 
woman who founded a home for worthy old women, and 
through the subsequent loss of her property found a home 
there. Had she sought an investment to provide for the vicis- 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 



247 



situdes of her own life she could not have found a better one. 
And examples such as this are not few to illustrate God's 
method of blessing him who makes himself a blessing. 

God makes goodness almost dangerously profitable. That 
the bread cast on the waters will come back is as certain as is 
consistent with true benevolence in giving it. 

It is well that a prompt return with compound interest does 
not always attend one's earthly giving, else would generosity 
become the world's most chronic vice, and the inevitable symp- 
tom of covetousness. It is more blessed to give than to 
receive, and there is no real giving that gives to receive again. 
So he never gives who gives only what he possesses — he must 
give himself. 

Not what we give, but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare. 

But as one candle lights another and finds its own light 
undimmed, so may one soul impart to another soul, love, gen- 
tleness, kindness, instruction, encouragement, comfort — every 
spiritual gift, and be the richer for the giving. "There is that 
scattereth, and yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth more 
than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty." 

The boy with the basket might have hidden and eaten his 
five crackers and two dried fish alone. So would he have 
starved his soul and his fellowmen's bodies. But he made him- 
self immortal, and heaped his own basket to overflowing by 
an act of unsparing generosity in the Lord's service. 

Miracles must not tend to wastefulness. The miraculous is 
not to be depended upon as a constant source of supply. 
To-day it avails — thank God and make the most of it. But 
for to-morrow we must have recourse to the ordinary channels 
of provision. Let down your nets, and start the mill and fire 
up the oven; for God will see you starve ere he makes you a 
pauper by miracle. 

God uses the miraculous sparingly, and then with admoni- 
tions of caution. It were easy for the supernatural to prove 
a snare to us, teaching us to disregard the divine sequence of 
cause and effect, and encouraging us in idleness and improvi- 



248 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

dence. It is not miracles we need so much as the utilization of 
the good we now despise because it is in fragments. The frag- 
ments are capable of filling to overflowing all the baskets 
which we can provide. Fragments of knowledge — gather 
them up into a storehouse of truth, bringing out of this treas- 
ure things new and old. Fragments of time — do not waste 
them; they are little fractions of eternity. Fragments of joy, 
never quite enough to satisfy the longings of the heart and 
sometimes mocking the perfect bliss for which we sigh — 
gather them up and make of them a mosaic of happiness for 
your own life and the lives of others. Fragments of Scripture 
verses learned in childhood from sainted parents, or gathered 
in maturer years of reading and meditation — gather them up, 
and make them a strength and a solace in the hours when you 
shall need a word from on high to hold fast your soul in temp- 
tation or affliction. Fragments of opportunity — no chance 
often to follow up the good we do, and see what comes of it; 
opportunity only for a passing word, a kindness bestowed bv 
the way, and the two souls part; one day shall all these frag- 
ments of kindness be gathered into one record of goodness 
complete, and the Master himself shall say, "I was an hun- 
gered, and ye gave me meat; thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I 
was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; 
I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came 
unto me." Then shall the righteous, conscious of their frag- 
mentary goodness, and self-reproachful because it was incom- 
plete, learn the truth that unifies all righteous effort into com- 
pleteness into the ministry of love in his name. 

Out of fragments of old pottery wise men have recon- 
structed past civilizations. Out of the fragments of the broken 
Moabite stone have come down through nearly thirty cen- 
turies confirmations of the truth of the Bible. By means of 
fragments of rock the story of the formation of the earth's 
crust is told to us. By little fragments of clothing, torn off 
and stuck upon the bushes by the captives, the settlers of earlv 
days followed the Indians and rescued their loved ones from 
the tomahawk and the stake. Fragments? Our art galleries 



THE BOY WITH THE BASKET 



249 



abound in fragments, great even in their ruins, of what were 
once gems of art, and even now reveal the grace and power 
of the sculptor in their battered lines, and preserve and trans- 
mit the skill that thus we make our own. Great is the good 
that is preserved to the world in fragments, and blessed are 
those who gather them up and make the most of them. 




THE TOWER OF ANTONIO, JERUSALEM 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 

We come now to the close of the second year of the minis- 
try of Jesus. As before, the dividing event is the passover. 
Jesus did not attend this passover, but the crowds going to it 
and eating of the bread in the wilderness forced upon him a 
crisis. He had now to face the question whether he would 
yield to the popular demand, and become a king. All the 
three-fold temptations in the wilderness came back with 
greater power, for the tempter now was an enthusiastic multi- 
tude of Jesus' own countrymen urging him to head a popular 
uprising for the restoration of their hereditary rights as a 
nation. Why should he not make bread from stones, when 
they were so hungry, so poor, so ground down by con- 
tinuous oppression? Why should he not cast himself down 
from a pinnacle of the temple, and with wrath as righteous 
as when he had driven out the money-changers, drive away 
the Roman guard that kept the Tower of Antonia, almost 
within the sacred precincts of the temple? Why should he not 
have a kingdom when the people, his own people, the lost, 
sheared, scattered, shepherdless sheep of the house of Israel, 
were ruled only to be plundered, persecuted, and misgoverned? 

A recent book is entitled "The Crisis of the Christ." It 
treats of seven incidents in the life of Jesus among which this is 
not included. But this was the real crisis of the Christ. Jesus 
had endeavored to avert it. He had wrought miracles sparingly, 
reluctantly, and when pressed by the urgent demands of need. 
Not after the first time did he do a misfhty work merely to 
add to the joy of life; he had more than. he could do to hush 
the cry of pain. He had done this quietly; had taken those 
whom he had healed apart; had charged them not to tell of it. 

2 so 



THE CRISIS. OF THE CHRIST 251 

But his fame had spread till now the multitude were vociferous 
in their demands that he should be king. 

Some things had been settled already. Jesus was the 
Messiah. But what kind of a Messiah was he to be? Within 
the limits of his Messianic mission some liberty of choice was 
permitted him. The people evidently were persuaded of the 
truth of his Messianic character: thus far they were led of 
God: flesh and blood had not revealed it unto them, but their 
Father in heaven. Could not Jesus trust the people also to 
determine the manner of his Messianic work? Should he 
accept their interpretation of his office as the will of God? 

And, again, why not? If the world, being foolish, must have 
kings, why not be one of them? There was no reason why a 
king should not also be a good man. Good kings had been; 
why not be one of them? If not, there remained the sad 
alternative — the people would forsake him; the opposition of 
scribes and priests would grow more bitter; for him there 
would be humiliation and defeat. What would happen he 
knew only too well; it had just happened to John. Why not 
escape all this, and use his opportunities while he had them? 

These were the questions that crowded upon Jesus that even- 
ing after he had sent the multitude away. They would not go 
far; bread was too abundant. They would return. Before he 
met them again, Jesus must face and settle the question of his 
life. 

Alone, on the mountain top lie wrestled over his life decis- 
ion. On the one side was the eager admiring, needy multi- 
tude; on the other was conscience. On one side were the 
expectations of his friends; on the other was the pleasure of 
his Father. On the one side was the kingdom; on the other 
the cross. Alone in the dark and storm, the Christ met his 
crisis. 

But while he faced the storm within, his disciples were bat- 
tling with the wind that had swept down upon the lake. They 
were "toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary." It was 
after three o'clock in the morning when he came to them, and 
brought cheer and assurance, and with his coming came the 
dawn and the end of the storm. 



252 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The scene was a picture of the tragedy of life. Humanity 
was in that boat, tossed by passion and the storms of life. 
Dark were the waves beneath; dark the heavens where God 
remained silent. But God had not remained apart on a moun- 
tain top, thinking of his kingdom, and exulting in the thought- 
less praise of men; God had come to men in the midst of the 
storm, to bring calm and light to their souls. Who knows but 
the vision of the disciples in the boat below, visible to the Mas- 
ter while he prayed, may have strengthened his purpose to 
cast himself upon the wave, to enter for better or for worse the 
boat with humanity, and, though the sea of fickle favor rose 
in a mighty wave to overthrow him, to bring, safe to its 
haven, 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all its hopes for coming years? 

And what a comfort to the toiling millions at the oars, 
straining their eyes and seeing only blackness, to know, that, 
somewhere, out of sight, but not too far away to help, Jesus 
sees it all! 

The crowd met Jesus at the landing; they were ready for 
breakfast. They wondered too, how he had gotten across, 
while they had to walk around. Jesus met them sternly. He 
would not cast himself down from any pinnacles for their curi- 
ous conjectures. "Ye seek me, because ye ate of the loaves 
and are filled," said he. They were interested and asked. 
"What must we do to work the work of God?" 

But when Jesus told them to believe in him, they returned 
to the theme of the loaves, and, none too delicately, reminded 
him that their fathers had eaten manna in the wilderness. The 
miracles of Moses were working mischief a dozen centuries 
after Moses' death. 

Then Jesus told them as he had told Satan, that men do not 
live by bread alone, and that he had come from heaven to feed 
men with spiritual bread. When he said these things to them, 
the crowd at once began to murmur, and they said: "Is not 
this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
know? how is it then that he sayeth, I came down from 
heaven?" 



THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 



2 53 



The crowd went away and got breakfast as best it could, 
and did not return again. The people, finding that there was 
no more free board to be had in Capernaum, started on again to 
Jerusalem, complaining as they went. So closed the second 
year of the ministry of Jesus. Jesus had met his crisis. He 
would not make bread from stones, nor forsake the world for a 




CHRIST AND PETER — (SCHWARTZ) 



kingdom. The result was as he expected. "From that time, 
many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." 
The break between Jesus and the unfed crowd was accent- 
uated by a break between him and the leaders. These, indeed, 
had for some time been cynical, and at times hostile. They had 



254 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

complained of his violation of the Sabbath, of his being "a 
gluttonous man and a wine-bibber," and of his claiming power 
to forgive sins. On the day of his return to Capernaum after 
the feeding of the five thousand, he talked to the multitude on 
the shore, and later preached his gospel in the synagogue. 
There, apparently, he was invited to dine with a Pharisee. So 
Jesus, that day, instead of feeding others, was himself fed. 
We do not know who the Pharisee was, or how he came to 
give the invitation, but one thing is evident, it was given in 
no spirit of genuine hospitality. As soon as Jesus was seated 
a pointed criticism was made that he ate with unwashed hands. 
Then Jesus turned upon the Pharisees, and accused them of 
caring so much for form and display that they had neglected 
the spirit of religion, and had become hypocrites. "The things 
without, do not defile," he said, "but the evil thoughts within." 

It was an unwelcome truth and unkindly received. Invita- 
tions to dine with Pharisees in Capernaum came rarely to 
Jesus after that; and when he ate with Matthew and his com- 
pany, there was a new accusation, that he was the friend of 
publicans and sinners. Alas, from that time he had few other 
friends than these. 

We must not assume, because it seems plain enough to us 
that the things from within defile rather than those without, 
that Jesus expected the truth to be favorably received. He 
deliberately attacked the traditions of the Pharisees, who 
counted ceremonial washing so important that to neglect it 
was to be guilty of gross ceremonial defilement. The word 
wash, as used in the passage, means to wash vigorously, or 
with the fist of one hand scrubbing the other. It was held, 
too, that the water must trickle back to the wrist. It is by no 
means certain that washing in Christ's day was all of this hon- 
est straightforward sort. The Jews of Jerusalem still require 
ceremonial washing before entering their synagogues for wor- 
ship. I inspected the provision for ablutions at the door of one 
of their largest synagogues there. It is a tiny faucet, opened 
by being struck from below by the finger, and in such sort that 
continuous pressure for the sake of the running of a stream is 



THE CRISIS OF THE CHRIST 



255 



meant to be impossible. The finger presses up the valve and 
is withdrawn a little to receive the water, which barely moist- 
ens the tip of the thumb and finger. This stands for a bath, 
ceremonially. 

Even such a symbol might do good if men were to say, "It 
is but a symbol, and has value only as it typifies purity of soul," 
but the Jews of Christ's time exalted the symbol and forgot 
its meaning, substituting their cleanliness of body, which may 
or may not have been thorough, for purity of heart. Jesus 
attacked this tradition both by example and. precept, ignoring 
the form, visibly and publicly defying it, that he might expose 
the shame beneath it. 

From this, Jesus went on to attack the tradition concern- 
ing Corban. A man who intended to make a gift to God 
might see his parents in dire need, but say, "Corban," that is, 
"I have dedicated this property to God." This would not 
imply that he had already parted with it, or intended to do so 
at once; he might keep it indefinitely, but it was sacred from 
all demands for relief of suffering, even the suffering of his 
parents. 

To Jesus no tradition that professed to honor God had 
sacredness as against the needs of men. God's glory is in the 
welfare of his children. The commandments of God are rea- 
sonable and are visibly related to human welfare. To please 
God by the neglect of parents, was to Jesus blasphemy. So 
he attacked the tradition, saying: 

"Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none 
effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias 
prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me 
with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their 
heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teach- 
ing for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matt. 15: 6-9). 

This touched the whole question of ceremonial righteous- 
ness at its tenderest point. It was just in those matters of 
tradition that the Pharisees prided themselves that they were 
righteous. Between them and Jesus henceforth there could 
be no sympathy. They knew where he stood, and they knew 
his opinion of them. 



256 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The danger of being taken by force and made a king was 
now well past. The Pharisees, certainly, wanted no king who 
would thus wound their vanity; and as for the multitudes 
whom he fed yesterday, they were on their way toward Jerusa- 
lem, grumbling because they had no cakes and ale for that 
day. 

Thus did Jesus meet his life's crisis. But it cost him all 
that men hold dear, save fidelity to duty. 




THE MAN OF SORROWS — (jEAN BERAUD) 



CHAPTER XXII 



THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 

Jesus now began the third and last year of his ministry by 
withdrawing from Galilee into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. 
The reasons for his withdrawal are apparent in the crisis at 
Capernaum, the disappointment of the people in the discourse 
about the Bread of life, and his break with the Pharisees in 
the matter of eating with unwashed hands. To escape the 
crowd, gospel-hardened and unspiritual, and from the Phari- 
sees, always cold and critical and now openly hostile, was his 
purpose. 

We do not know just where Jesus went; it is unlikely that 
he visited large cities. "He entered into a house and would 
have no man know he was there, but he could not be hid." A 
Gentile woman sought his help for her little daughter. Jesus 
was unwilling to work more miracles. Had he not seen the 
inevitable mischief resulting from them? His miracles had 
expatriated him. He had come here to escape from the mob 
that ever hung upon the miracle. But his heart was touched 
with the mother's need. He would test her faith. 

"It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the 
dogs," he said. 

It was a harsh saying, Pharisaical and cold in form; we can- 
not believe that it disclosed his heart. 

But the mother was too intent on the daughter's healing to 
resent the insult. Quick was her wit, and ready her reply. It 
was only a crumb that she wanted, one that, falling from the 
plate of the child at the table, might be eaten even by the dog 
beneath it. Again the Lord marvelled at faith such as he had 
not found in Israel. "O woman," he exclaimed, "Great is thy 
faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt!" 

257 



258 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The healing of the little girl probably shortened the visit of 
Jesus to the region of Tyre and Sidon. He had come to 
escape publicity, but it was thrust upon him. We may believe 
that he healed the diseases of those who came to him, taught 
some needed lesson to the crowd that gathered round, and 
then moved on seeking some quiet place. He did not find it. 

Jesus did not immediately return to Capernaum, but, turn- 
ing eastward among the foothills south of the Lebanon moun- 
tains, crossed the Jordan above the Sea of Galilee, and came 
to Decapolis, where he had once made a brief visit and had 
been rejected because of the loss of the swine (Matt. 28: 34; 
Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39). Here again he did not escape 
the crowd. A deaf man came to him ; Jesus took him aside and 
healed him (Mark 7: 32-37), and charged the man not to tell 
of his healing: but the loosed tongue refused to be silent, and 
the fame of Jesus spread throughout the region. Then the 
multitude came again, bringing their sick, and Jesus repeated 
the experiences which had preceded his departure from the 
region of the lake (Matt. 15; 29-38; Mark 8: 1-9), even to the 
feeding of four thousand improvident and hungry people. 

In this same summer, and not long after this event, Jesus 
healed a blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8: 22-26), charging 
him, as was his custom, to tell no man. But these admoni- 
tions were unavailing. The news spread. Jesus now recrossed 
the lake to "the borders of Magdala" (Matt. 15: 39) "into the 
parts of Dalmanutha ? ' (Mark 8: 10). This was a region north 
of the city of Tiberias and south of Capernaum. We are not 
sure whether he returned to Capernaum, but he was met by 
the Pharisees with a new demand for a sign (Matt. 16: 1-4: 
Mark 8: 11-13), and so the clamor for the miraculous grew in 
proportion as it was fed. 

It is not to be wondered at that these people demanded a 
sign. In the thought of many good people to-day the 
programme of Christ was essentially this: An advent into the 
world, with a claim to be the Son of God; the working of 
miracles to establish that claim; the condemnation of men 
because they did not accept the testimony of the miracles in 
their witness to the divine Sonship of Jesus. 



THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 



2 59 



The real programme of Jesus was very different. He never 
referred in any recorded passage to his miraculous birth; he 
was late in making any claim of his divine Sonship; he was 
reluctant to work miracles; he went about doing good, teach- 
ing, helping, forgiving, inspiring men, and saying, "Ye shall 
know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Mighty 
works had their evidential value, but they rarely convinced 
men. It is well for us to remember this lest we suppose our- 
selves at a serious disadvantage in our remoteness from the 
actual work of Jesus. Jesus himself would not have counted 




THE CANAANITISH WOMAN — (pALMA VECCHIO, I475-I528) 



it so. We have the truth, which he counted the main thing, 
and we have the witness of nineteen centuries of enlighten- 
ment, purity and progress to the divine authority of the 
gospel. This is a far greater work than the first disciples saw, 
and is trustworthy. 

We should not, then, follow the mistake of other days and 
seek for an evidence of Christianity in signs and wonders. The 
true sign of the gospel is a changed life; the real wonder is 
that of the life of Christ reproduced in the lives of sinful men. 



260 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Neither the darkened cabinet of the spiritualist medium with 
wonders that happen after the lights are out, nor the widely 
heralded achievement of the "healer" for revenue only, bear 
the true mark of the work of Christ. These are the works 
of those whose constituency seeks for a sign. 

Jesus now took occasion to warn his disciples against the 
Pharisees (Matt. 16: 5-12; Mark 8: 14-21). To these men the 
disciples naturally looked up. But Jesus let them understand 
that the difference between himself and these teachers was 
fundamental. It was a strange lesson to the disciples, but thev 
learned it at last, to their sorrow. It is interesting to find that 
even in his own lifetime, and during the period of his brief 
ministry, the fame of Jesus had spread beyond the narrow 
limits of his own country. His work had been a restricted 
work, national and almost local in its character, yet it had 
grown to such dimensions that in no part of his own little land 
was he unknown, and his experience proved that he had already 
been talked about, and to some extent was trusted, in some 
if not all the regions adjacent to his own Palestine. 

"He could not be hid." No character in history had a better 
chance of concealment. He was born at a time when the 
consolidation of national life into one power in Rome turned 
all eyes toward that capital, and made the rest of the world 
insignificant. He was born in a remote province, far from the 
great centers of population and of power. Only an occasional 
political outbreak brought any one in Palestine to the knowl- 
edge of Rome. Palestine was all but ignored in the empire of 
which it formed a part. The country in which Christ was 
born, with its whole population, was counted insignificant in 
the great Roman world. Hardly another Galilean of that 
generation is known to us, even by name, save as his name is 
associated with that of Jesus. He was nurtured and made his 
home in a village until that time unknown in literature, and 
which, but for himself, would have disappeared from human 
knowledge, and in a province of his own small country which 
had always been treated with contempt. "Search, and see that 
out of Galilee ariseth no prophet" (John 7: 52), was the word 



THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 2 6l 

of a member of the Sanhedrin. His first disciples, who were 
Galilaeans, asked wonderingly, "Can any good thing come out 
of Nazareth?" His country was ignored in the world of that 
age; his province was ignored in the country of which it was 
a part; his village was ignored in the province in which it was 
located; and he was ignored in his own village. 

Some men, by their political power, succeeded in impressing 
that age and in leaving their mark upon the generations fol- 
lowing. So Augustus and Tiberius and Nero became known 
to fame or to infamy; but Jesus turned his back upon this 
opportunity of achieving popularity. "My kingdom is not of 
this world," said he. He declined a place among the monarchs 
of the earth. Again, as leader of an army, there was oppor- 
tunity for a man to make himself famous, and we know the 
names of generals of those clays — Antony, Pompey, Otho, 
Vitellius, Titus and the rest, some of whom rose from military 
to civil fame. But none of these did Jesus imitate; and though 
ten thousand legions of angels might have been his, he passed 
through life unattended save by a few practically unarmed 
disciples. It was an age of thought and literature, as well as 
of military glory and civic power, and we know the names of 
writers of that day. Horace and Virgil and Ovid, Livy and 
Strabo, Cicero and Pliny were practically his contemporaries. 
We know that Jesus was not illiterate, but no written word 
of his survives to tell the story of his life or the ends for 
which he wrought. It was an age of art, but his was a nation 
that never gave birth to a Phidias or Praxiteles; and he whose 
love of beauty was beyond compare left no tangible form of 
art to perpetuate his memory, neither statue nor temple nor 
likeness of himself, nor any creation of his hand and skill. He 
was an artisan, not an artist; a teacher, not an orator; a 
revealer of God, not a politician; a Saviour, and not a states- 
man. Jesus turned his back upon all forms of labor and 
industry by which the men of his generation were seeking to 
achieve fame. He repeatedly disappointed his friends by his 
failure to use his manifest powers for the purposes of publicity. 
His grace was so utterly at variance with the methods of the 



262 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

times that his own brethren repeatedly reproached him with 
a probable desire to be known, while he himself remained in 
secret (John 7: 3, 4). In all these things it would seem as 
though obscurity would have been the logical result of Christ's 
method. Yet no monarch or millionaire of that or any genera- 
tion, no soldier or stateman of that or arty other century, no 
author or artist or philosopher since the world began, became 
or is so widely known as he. 

"He could not be hid," because the divine nature within 
him shone forth through the humanity that enshrined it. A 
light such as his could not be hidden under a bushel. The sun 
could not be shut in a closet, neither could the life of God, 
which he manifested, be obscured by the conditions of his 
humanity. 

Whatever theology we have, or whether we have any, about 
the person of Christ, we must never forget that Jesus Christ 
was avowedly and honestly human, but we must not fail to 
remember that through this human life there shone in its ful- 
ness and majesty the essence of the divine nature. He was 
the Word made flesh; actual, honest, unfeigned flesh, but still 
the Word made flesh. Literature has many a romantic story 
of the child of royal birth, brought up in obscure surroundings, 
and manifesting when he came to years the dignity of regal 
birth. So Cyrus, among the shepherds, exhibited the daring 
and dignity which soon marked him as a prince. So Alfred, 
hiding in the cowherd's hut, was still a king. But literature 
has no story more romantic, more beautiful, more inherently 
truthful, than that related of the Son of God, who was born 
among men and lived the life of a carpenter, unobtrusively and 
without self-advertisement, until men beheld in him the glory 
of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of truth and grace. 

And Jesus could not be hid because humanity's need was 
sore, and he alone could meet it. He came to seek and to save 
the lost, and when he came, he found the lost blindly seeking 
him. The inarticulate cry of the suffering, the despairing 
moan of the outcast, the heart-broken sob of the penitent, all 
these he interpreted as addressed to himself, and he could not 
remain in hiding where the need for him was so great. 



THE UNCONCEALABLE CHRIST 263 

And so, in the gospel the account of the beginning of 
Christ's ministry is followed by the record of the deeds done 
among suffering men, so many and so marvelous that the inert 
world into which he came was shaken from its lethargy enough 
to wonder at his power, to be convinced of his goodness, and 
almost to accept his saving love. 

Almost, but not quite. "He suffered under Pontius Pilate; 
was crucified, died and was buried." But he could not be hid. 
The cross, though it brought him a death of ignominy, only 
lifted him up where all men could see and come unto him. 
The grave could not hide him, but became the gateway of 
eternal life to all who trust in him. Out from the narrow con- 
fines of his age, his nation, his ignominious death and his 
indisputable burial, pressed forth his new life for all nations. 

He cannot be hid. If all the world should try by unani- 
mous consent to forget him, it could not succeed. If all the 
Bibles in all the ends of the world were burned, it would not 
obliterate his memory. If all the churches in all Christian lands 
were destroyed, it would not cause him to be forgotten. It 
would be perfectly safe to predict that the future will weed 
from its lists of names counted great, many which the world 
honors but will not care to remember, and many more, which 
spite of industrious effort to remember, it must inevitablv 
forget. But his name will be remembered and loved and 
honored, so long as there is intelligence and faith and moral 
and spiritual life among men. 

He cannot be hid because his life is resident in the life of his 
people, and he is with them according to his promise. The 
conditions which once shut in and localized his life are now 
forever past. Wherever there is a Christian there is the Christ. 
And when heaven and earth are passed away, and all things 
hidden are revealed, and all things secret are made known, 
then shall he stand forth with a glory which the brilliancy of 
heaven can only the more perfectly disclose; then he shall 
appear at the right hand of God the Father, amid the praises 
of heaven and the glories of a redeemed humanity. Thus, to 
all eternity shall he abide, the Unconcealable Christ. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 

The summer passed and the autumn brought with it one of 
the great annual festivals of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles. 
It was the annual commemoration of the journey through the 
wilderness, which, from the time of Nehemiah had been 
observed by dwelling in tents (Neh. 8: 17). We have no record 
that Jesus had previously attended this feast. He had not 
been at the passover in the spring preceding, and his policy 
of retirement was confusing to his friends, as well as to those 
who did not believe in him. 

And now we meet again the brothers of Christ, who are still 
unconverted, and who are disposed to be meddlesome. There 
were four at least of the brothers, James, Joseph, Simon and 
Judas (Mark 6: 3), and there were two or more sisters whose 
names we do not know. The Bible never calls them cousins 
or relatives, but always brothers, and we have no reason to 
call them anything else. These later became his disciples, but 
at this time they were concerned with demanding why Jesus, 
whom they assumed to be desirous of advertising himself, 
preferred to remain in seclusion. But Jesus gave them no 
intimation of his plans. 

There was much gossip about Jesus at the feast, and many 
wondered whether he would appear. The Pharisees and priests 
were openly hostile, the people were divided. It was under- 
stood that Jesus was in hiding. 

But while the feast was at its height, about the middle of 
the week, Jesus appeared, teaching openly in the temple. We 
do not know the nature of his discourse, but we are told that 
the Jews who heard him were astonished at his learning. 
"How knoweth this man literature?" they asked. To them 

264 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 



265 



learning meant knowledge of the law, and the place to attain 
it was in the schools of the rabbins. Jesus impressed people 
who heard him as a man with a liberal education. The 
common people heard him gladly, but the scholars, as well, 
wondered at his teaching. 

Jesus at once turned to the miracle which even yet was the 
theme of much discussion in Jerusalem — the healing of the 
impotent man at Bethsaida, a year and a half before (John 5: 
1-16). The rulers were still plotting against him because that 




THE NEW ENTRANCE TO JERUSALEM 
(MADE ON THE OCCASION OF THE VISIT OF THE GERMAN EMPEROR) 

work had been performed on the Sabbath. Jesus at once 
exposed the plot, and when the people demanded, "Who goeth 
about to kill thee?" he proceeded to defend his act of healing 
a man on the Sabbath. Tf a baby boy was born on the Sabbath 
the father caused him to be circumcised a week later, notwith- 
standing the preparation and labor that accompanied the act. 
Tf it was lawful to perform such an act on the Sabbath because 
the letter of the law might seem to require it, was it less right 
to heal a man, when the whole intent and spirit of the law. 
made for men's welfare, demanded his healing? 



266 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



Not only did the argument carry weight, but the bearing of 
Jesus, standing forth fearlessly, and preaching thus, caused 
the favorable sentiment toward him to gain ground. There 
were many who were ready to say at once, "Do the rulers 
indeed know that this is the Christ?" 

But others objected that Jesus had given no satisfactory 
account of himself, and that what they knew of his antecedents 
was not such as they expected in the Christ. Jesus met this 




TOWER OF DAVID AND HIPPICUS, JERUSALEM 

objection, saying, "He that sent me is true; I am not come 
of myself." 

The people were more and more inclined to believe in him 
as day by clay he taught in the temple. And while the priests 
would gladly have arrested him, they could not do so without 
too great a demonstration. So the feast passed by, and the 
last day came. 

The feast of tabernacles had a notable ceremony, that of the 
libation of water, brought by the priests in glad procession 
from the fountain of Siloam in the valley of the Kedron. As 
the procession re-entered the temple court, Jesus, standing 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 



267 



in a conspicuous place, cried out to the thirsty throng about 
him, ''If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink; he 
that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, from within 
him shall flow rivers of living water." The disciple was to be 
himself a fountain, supplied from the fountain-head of grace. 




DAVID STREET, JERUSALEM 
(THE FLAG SHOWS THE AMERICAN CONSULATE) 



What more he said we do not know, but an increased number 
of the people were ready to accept him, while others asked, 
"Shall Christ come out of Galilee?" 

The priests saw their authority in danger. The people were 
gradually being won over to Jesus. The leaders determined 
to arrest him, and sent officers for that purpose. The officers 
returned without him. There had been no resistance, no 
flight. But as the officers were struggling through the crowd, 



268 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

they heard the words of Jesus, and were themselves convinced 
that he was beyond their jurisdiction. 

I know of no scene in the life of Christ that is more eloquent 
in its testimony of the power of Jesus over men. I suppose 
that those officers were made of the stuff that constitutes good 
constables. They were none too tender-hearted; they were 
accustomed to hard scenes. They knew that they were not to 
judge him, that they were only to arrest him and let others 
try him. But they faced the priests who sent them — they 
would not face Christ — and said, "Never man spake like this 
man." 

It was a straightforward judgment, made by unsentimental 
men; and the world approves it. Never man spake so 
tenderly, so lovingly, so authoritatively. Never man spake 
words that live as his words live, in the heart and aspiration 
of the world. 

The return of the officers resulted in a heated discussion 
among the Pharisees, Nicodemus defending Jesus, and others 
opposing him. The result was a division of sentiment that set 
aside, for the time, the plan to arrest him. 

The evening of "the great day of the feast" Jesus went to 
the Mount of Olives. It is quite unnecessary to suppose that 
he went out to spend the night in prayer. Undoubtedly he 
prayed; but he probably spent a while in the cool of the Garden 
of Gethsemane, doubtless already a favorite haunt with him, 
and then passed the night with his friends in Bethany. 

The next morning he was back in the temple, and still 
master of the situation. But a trap was set for him. A woman 
had been taken in adultery, and was brought to the scribes 
and Pharisees. It afforded them a fine opportunity to ensnare 
Jesus. The law in Leviticus (20: 10) and Deuteronomy 
(22: 22) commanded that such should be put to death. The 
law included the man as well, but the man, as too often hap- 
pens, had escaped. The law, of course, was a dead letter. Not 
for centuries had it been in force in Jerusalem; still, it was 
suspended theoretically because the Jews no longer had the 
power of inflicting a death sentence. Jesus, they thought, 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 



269 



would not dare to say that the law should be enforced, neither 
would he dare abrogate it. 

It was a fine opportunity the devil had made ready to their 
hand; and the shameless men pulled the shamefaced woman 
through the crowd to Jesus. Among them all there was no 
father or brother or husband that for daughter's sake or sister's 




INSIDE THE JAFFA GATE 



or wife's, raised hand to strike off the clutch of those men 
upon her as they dragged her into Jesus' presence. 

Jesus seemed preoccupied while they were stating their 
case. Stooping he wrote on the ground; it is the only time 
we are told of his writing, and what he wrote we do not know. 
They pressed him for an answer to their dilemma; "they con- 
tinued asking him." Then he lifted himself to the height of 
his majestic manhood, and they quailed before his look. "He 



270 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at 
her," said he. 

It is impossible to add words to the story as it is told in the 
Scripture: "And again he stooped down, and with his ringer 
wrote on the ground. And they, when they heard it, went 
out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last: 



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CHRIST AND THE ADULTERESS — (EMILE SIGNOl) 



and Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in 
the midst. And Jesus lifted up himself, and said unto her, 
Woman, where are they? did no man condemn thee? And 
she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I con- 
demn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more (John 
8: 8-it). 



THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES 



271 



So miserably failed the attempt to entangle Jesus in the 
trap of judgment against a poor woman. 

That day he continued his discussion in the temple. His 
place of teaching was "the treasury," or court of the women, 
called by the latter name not because it was exclusively or even 
chiefly for women, but because women were permitted to go 
no further. The Jews were loud in their demands that Jesus 
should declare himself. Why did he leave them to conjecture? 





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THE ADULTERESS (TITIAN, I477-I566) 



Who was he? Jesus told them that the man who willed to 
do God's will should know whether his teaching was from 
God or from himself. 

Without declaring whether he was the Messiah, he made at 
this feast some most astounding claims. "If any man thirst, 
let him come unto me and drink"; "I am the light of the 
world"; "I am not alone"; "I and the Father that sent me"; 
"I do always the things that are pleasing to him"; "Which of 
you convinceth me of sin?"; "If a man keep my word, he shall 



272 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

never see death." It is no wonder that these words provoked 
the Jews to wrath. But the words which angered them most 
were two utterances about Abraham. 

Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
make you free." They answered, "We are Abraham's seed, 
and were never in bondage to any man." It was an idle boast. 
Abraham's seed had often been in bondage. Who are these 
millions in Egypt making bricks without straw? Abraham's 
seed. Who are these whose kings appear with monotonous 
regularity on the Assyrian monuments, bearing each his annual 
tribute to a foreign conqueror? Abraham's seed. Who are 
these who sadly march in chains to Babylon, and there hang 
their harps on the willows for three score years and ten? 
Abraham's seed. To what nation has not Abraham's seed paid 
tribute? Abraham's seed has bowed under the yoke of Egypt, 
Assyria, Moab, Syria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome — to 
answer is merely to call the roll of the great powers of 
antiquity. And whose were these soldiers present to keep 
order at this very feast, these tax-gatherers eager for their 
money? These were Romans, attending to the seed of Abra- 
ham — still in bondage not only to Rome, but to sin, to tradi- 
tion, to empty form. From this Jesus would gladly deliver 
them by his truth; but they were ready to cry out with their 
fathers of old, "Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians." 

The other reference to Abraham was, "Your father Abraham 
saw my day, and was glad." He meant that Abraham saw 
coming an era of better things for his descendants, and in 
faith trusted God and waited for the day whose harbinger and 
whose realization was Christ. But the Jews were not content 
with such an interpretation, and demanded to know how he, 
being still a young man, certainly under fifty, could have seen 
Abraham. Jesus was not wont to give easy answers to such 
challenges. "Before Abraham was, I am," said he. 

This was quite too much for their patience. Stones are 
abundant in Palestine, and the Jews found a quantity and pre- 
pared to cast them at him; but in the confusion Jesus escaped, 
and the discussions of the feast came abruptly to an end. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 

Jesus returned from the feast of tabernacles, but not, appar- 
ently, to Capernaum. Instead, he withdrew into the region 
of Caesarea Philippi. Here, alone with his disciples, he pre- 
pared them for the coming tragedy and for independent labor 
after he should be taken from them. In anticipation of this 
he asked them, "Who do men say that I am?" 

The disciples reported to him the conjectures they had 
heard. Some said he was John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still 
others Jeremiah; and others, simply "one of the prophets." 

The time had come for the Twelve to express their own 
faith, and Jesus asked them pointedly the question, "But who 
say ye that I am?" 

It was a great question. They might have answered more 
readily some months earlier. They had listened eagerly when 
people asked Jesus who he was, and he had not answered, 
How should they now answer him? But their faith had not 
left them. There was but one thing any of them could answer, 
and yet to say it plainly when he had not said it, to commit 
themselves on a point on which lie had been so reticent, to 
declare what he had so steadfastly refused to declare — is it any 
wonder they did not shout the answer in concert? 

But Peter spoke. Sometimes he spoke too soon, but not 
this time. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 

Then Jesus blessed him, for Peter had learned what Jesus 
wanted men to be sure of without his asserting it. The truth 
of his divinity was not a dogma to be forced upon men, but a 
vital truth to be spiritually discerned. Flesh and blood had 
not revealed it to Peter. Jesus had not told him. Peter had 
learned it in the way that Jesus desired, and it came as a 

273 



274 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



gracious revelation from God. ''From that time began Jesus 
to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusa- 
lem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and 
scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up" (Matt. 
16-21). 

From that time, when he had just disclosed to them the 
truth for which they had been yearning! From that time, 
when their hopes began to rise again! Yet it was the right 
time for them to learn it. Jesus had waited long for the time 
that now had come. 




MOUNT TABOR FROM THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON 

When Peter rebuked him, Jesus sternly reproved Peter that 
his faith should now fall so far below his recent confession. 
Jesus did not attempt to soften down the truth. He told l 
them, on the contrary, that they, too, were to take up the cross 
and follow him. But that truth had in it some comfort. It 
was better for them to share with him, at all events, in his 
sacrifice, if not in his glory. But they did not understand his 
words, and they continued to wonder and question to the end. 

While Jesus and his disciples were yet in the north country, 
another event occurred, the most significant thus far in his 



THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 



275 



whole ministry, the transfiguration. It was in the autumn 
preceding the spring of his crucifixion — the autumn, when 
Palestine dries up, and the verdure of its spring withers; even 
so had the prospects and hopes of the disciples shriveled since 
the passover, when multitudes had been thronging him. It 
was the autumn, and ahead lay the winter of discontent and 
desertion and betrayal and humiliation, to be followed by the 
new life of the resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit. 
It appears to have been on a Sabbath evening, just a week 
after Peter's confession, that the Lord ascended the moun- 




MOUNT HERMON 



tain, probably Hermon, in the region of Csesarea Philippi, 
where we are told that Peter's confession occurred. On one 
of the spurs of this mountain they spent the night, and in the 
morning they descended to find the demoniac boy in need of 
healing, and then took their way back to Capernaum, where 
the tax-gatherer was ready with his demand for the Lord's 
annual payment. To such conditions of human life they were 
soon to ascend, and from such conditions they had ascended; 
but while they were upon the mountain they beheld the 
transfiguration. 



276 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The whole northern end of Palestine is dominated by the 
snow-clad summit of Mount Hermon, its triple top rising 
above the intervening hills from every elevation. From its 
slope the view is most beautiful. A sunset from one of its 
summits, or from any of its slopes above the level of the foot- 
hills, is a sight of solemn grandeur. The Lord and the disci- 
ples watched it that Sabbath evening, no doubt, looking down 
the while upon the Sea of Galilee and the region of Christ's 
ministry, with mingled emotions, as they recalled the incidents 
that had occurred in this and that and the other village, clearlv 
in sight from where they sat, but growing dim in the shadows. 
So far as we know, the Lord never before had climbed so 
high, or looked down on such a panorama. To the eastward, 
toward Damascus and beyond, the shadow of the mountain 
itself was cast, a shadow said to be one of the most wonderful 
on earth, extending seventy miles across the desert; while to 
the north and south of this darkening wedge cast by the white 
mountain top, the lingering light shone on hill-tops here and 
there, and across the level plain, till at last the sun went down, 
a ball of fire, into the great sea to the west, and one by one the 
stars pricked their way through the short Syrian twilight, and 
measured the depth of the black vault of the sky. 

Up from the hot, close air of the valley and the village, Jesus 
and the three disciples had come for a night of rest and prayer. 
Not to the very summit, surely, for there the weather would 
have been freezing, but high enough to find the coolness and 
breeze and to overlook the land below, and low enough down 
to see the hoary summit rising in silent grandeur above. 

This, and not the rounded top of Tabor, was the fit place 
for the transfiguration. In the beauty of the dawn of the 
Sunday morning that followed, in the mystery and gentleness 
of the swiftly formed and quickly dissipated cloud, there was 
present every natural condition of sublimity and awe that 
combined into a fitting back-ground for this event. I once 
saw Pike's Peak in the glory of a summer dawn, while all the 
valley was dark below, and we, groping in the gloom, lifted our 
eyes to the sun-lit peak. I saw this, and it thrilled me: but 



THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 



277 



morning after morning, at Nazareth, at Tiberias, and from the 
hills of Galilee, I saw Mount Hermon light up before the sun 
had risen upon us, and I almost beheld the transfiguration 
repeated on its slope. When, in the Vatican, I saw that 
greatest of the masterpieces of Raphael, the human Christ 





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THE TRANSFIGURATION — (RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 



radiant with a divine and resident glory, a glory from within 
and above, I felt as if I had seen before the incident which the 
artist with such power had transcribed upon his canvas. 

"And when they were fully awake, they beheld his glory." 
It was no glorious dream. Some suggestions of truth come 



278 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

to men in dreams and visions of the night. In olden times men 
thus received spiritual impressions which they counted of great 
worth. But these became of worth to the world when those 
who beheld the vision translated it into the terms of life. The 
good that came to individuals in dreams, came to the world 
when the dreamers awoke. But the noblest visions are not 
reserved for the sleeping hours of earth. It is when men are 
awake that they behold things in their true perspective. It 
was not the disciples who were asleep in the valley who saw 
the glorified Christ, but those awake in the clear light of the 
morning. 

It is ever so. There were many wise men in the East; there 
had been no lack there of sages and of seers, and some had 
dreamed great hopes for men; but it was those who were awake 
who followed the star to Bethlehem. There were shepherds 
not a few about Bethlehem, dreaming of the times when David 
had lived there, and had kept his sheep and had played his 
harp, but only those who were awakened heard the music of the 
angels; they only, and not those who calmly slumbered, found 
the Christ-child. 

The glory which Christ received from the Father while on 
earth was the glory of attestation. It was the glory of assur- 
ance given to men that Jesus was what he declared, and that 
his work was the real and true work of God. There was need 
that this attestation should be given. There was a practical 
necessity that men should know, in certain great crises of his 
career, that Jesus spoke not merely with the power and wisdom 
of man, but also with the authority of God. There was need 
that the disciples should know it now, when they had staked 
all on their great confession of him, and seemed to have lost 
it in his declaration that he was soon to die. 

The glory of Christ was the glory of the Cross. This was 
shown in all the references to his approaching glory which 
form the climax of the Gospel of John. The cross was Christ's 
way of showing God's glory through self-denial. Men did not 
know that God could suffer; they had not conceived it as 
within the power of God to deny himself. They had made 



THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 279 

in their imagination a sort of glory which was a celestial shrine 
of divine selfishness, in whose Holy of holies God lived in 
serene self-contemplation. Christ showed us in the cross that 
sacrifice is God's glory. He taught us that by service God 
manifests his inner life. Christ expelled from the universe the 
absentee God whose concern for men was his rentals. He 
taught men that this God, whom some of them had worshiped 
through fear and some defied through bitterness, and all 
secretly distrusted and inwardly hated, was the product of 
imaginations perverted by centuries of idolatry. He lived 
among men a life of service, and prepared to offer up his life 
for those who as yet did not love him. But, lest men should 
think of his life as the perfection of humanity alone, he went 
up where the sounds and sights of human life were left below, 
and there his human face grew radiant with the light of heaven, 
and about that wondrous form of him who was born of Marv 
there shone the light of God's own effulgence. Then out of 
the cloud came the voice from God, affirming that the good- 
ness and the love of Christ were not only his as man, but were 
also his because these attributes and he were of God; and that 
being God's they were not for heaven alone, but for the earth 
as well. 

Christ was born to a life of obscure and humble duty. Most 
of his years are unrecorded. They lie in the shadows, the un- 
painted ravines of his career. They are none the less glorious 
for that, and they encourage us when we remember that the 
obscure and unrecognized is of worth, and that God does not 
fail to notice. We cannot spare the unrecorded years. 

But it would shock our sense of the fitness of things to 
know that Christ's life had been all obscurity, and his death 
an unrelieved tragedy. We should ask, "Where was God all 
this time?" We need the transfiguration, the voice, the 
declaration of God that this was his Son; we need these high- 
lights in the picture, else the life of Christ would have been 
our assurance that God is unheeding, if not malignant. It 
would almost make us atheists to know that God exhibited no 
concern when Jesus told his disciples first that they were right 



280 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

in believing him Christ, and, secondly, that he was about to 
be crucified. Perhaps in God's sight the real glory of Christ's 
life was the healing in the valley; but for us, whose lives are 
spent in the valley, there is need of the vision of the trans- 
figuration on the mountain. 

We have ceased to suppose, if indeed any one ever did really 
suppose, that men are saved by assenting to a dogmatic propo- 
sition. He who trusts to any intellectual conviction to save 
him trusts in a refuge of lies, even though the conviction itself 
is true. There is no saving power in mere factuality. Men 
are saved by committing themselves loyally to the truth that 
God loves them and that he is able to help them live a life of 
love. This is what transfigures life, and saves men. It is not 
mere doing good that saves; it is the spirit that underlies the 
good done, and proves the motive toward the good. A man 
can lose his soul in mere slavery of soul-torture for Christ's 
sake. He may bury the roots of his religion so deep in the 
mere doing of the law that there is no growth upward, no 
flower of the beauty of life, no fruit of a large, lovable man- 
hood. This is what spoils some people's religion, and repels 
their neighbors from the religious life. Christ transfigured the 
doing of duty with love, and made it glorious with the luster 
of his own life. Henceforth duty is not drudgery, but the joy 
of service. 

I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty; 
I woke and found that life was Duty. 
Was my dream, then, a shadowy lie? 

Nay, for the doing of duty in the spirit of Christ transfigures 
the hard outlines of obligation with the generous and delicate 
traceries of faith, hope and love; so that the real seer of the 
vision of beauty is not the dreamer but the worker, the dis- 
coverer of the beauty of holiness. 

Even in this blessed experience Jesus was not alone. It was 
not an experience too blessed to share with redeemed souls 
and with his disciples. 

Peter proposed to stay there with Jesus and Moses and 
Elias, "for he knew not what to say." Perhaps he might better 



THE VISION OF THOSE WHO WAKE 281 

not have said anything, but what he said is what we all some- 
times instinctively feel. Moses was alone in his transfiguration. 
Moses talked with God alone, but Christ takes us up into the 
mountain with him. Why not leave the world, and abide with 
him alone? But we cannot abide in the mount. Our life is in 
the plain. At times we may ascend to those blessed heights, 
but they are not for our present habitation. But we still have 
Jesus, not always transfigured, but the same divine Saviour, 
going about doing good, casting out demons, and laying down 
his life for men. 

It was Christ's approaching death that occasioned the trans- 
figuration. The mount of transfiguration and the mount of 
cruciftxion ; what a contrast they afforded to the disciples! 
But they were not inconsistent as God saw it. Jesus had told 
them only a week before about his approaching death, and 
Peter had rebuked him. Now came this scene which set his 
approaching death before them in a new light. They did not 
yet understand it. It was still a dread and terrible mystery 
to them. But some things began to be plain. The cross was 
in some way connected with a heavenly glory. It was under- 
stood by the souls of the redeemed. It was a part of the 
glorious work of God. These things Jesus wished to have 
understood in connection with his death. Something of these 
truths must have come to the disciples in connection with this 
event; but however little they understood it at the time, it 
was an unspeakable comfort afterward. 



CHAPTER XXV 



THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 

Jesus descended from the Mount of Transfiguration and 
healed the demoniac boy. Then he returned with his disciples 
to Galilee, when he again told them that he was to be put to 
death. They had been gone some time from Capernaum, and 
had been missed by the tax-collector. The story was as 
follows: 

"And when they were come to Capernaum, they that 
received the half-shekel came to Peter, and said, Doth not your 
master pay the half-shekel? He saith, Yea. And when he 
came into the house, Jesus spake first to him, saying, What 
thinkest thou, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do 
they receive toll or tribute? from their sons, or from strangers? 
And when he said, From strangers, Jesus said unto him, There- 
fore the sons are free. But, lest we cause them to stumble, 
go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that 
first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou 
shalt find a shekel: that take, and give unto them for me and 
thee" (Matt. 17: 24-27). 

The miracle of the stater in the fish's mouth is the most 
perplexing of all the miracles wrought by Jesus. The narrative 
is contained in Matthew only, and breaks off so abruptly, with- 
out saying definitely that the miracle was wrought, that we 
can hardly help wondering whether some important feature 
of the incident has not failed to come down to us. It might 
be a relief if we were to accept the theory that the finding of 
the coin in the fish's mouth was a later gloss, and that what 
the manuscript originally contained was the fact that Peter 
fished and sold his catch for a sum sufficient to pay the tax 
for Jesus and himself. As no other gospel contains a parallel 

282 



THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 283 

account with which to supplement this, which manifestly closes 
leaving the story incomplete, we would be justified in a query 
as to the real meaning of the incident, if, indeed, there existed 
sources of information available to answer our questions. In 
the absence of these, we are safest in taking the narrative in 
its apparent meaning, and treating this as the one miracle 
which Jesus wrought for himself. 

The first difficulty that meets us is the fact that Jesus was 
at least six months in arrears in his payment. Various explana- 
tions of this fact have been attempted. The truth, it seems to 
me, is not far to seek if we do not try too hard to see it. While 
every Jew was liable to this tax, and no exceptions appear to 
have been provided for, it is likely that when Jesus was at 
the height of his popularity there was no demand for the tax, 
and Jesus accepted the waiving of the demand as a courtesy. 
It is not improbable that prophets and rabbis were exempt by 
unanimous consent. He had undoubtedly paid the temple tax 
during the ten years he lived in Nazareth between his twentieth 
and thirtieth years. Then he began to preach and teach and 
heal, and no demand was made. Through a general recognition 
of the propriety of an exemption, he accepted the situation. 
The reason he had not paid it when it was due was that he did 
not intend to pay it unless, as it came to pass, the grudging, 
inhospitable spirit of the place compelled it. According to the 
law he owed it; yet, if according to the higher law of courtesy 
and affection it was not demanded, he would not pay it. What- 
ever favors came to him as a rabbi, he accepted with easy 
grace. He even noticed it and spoke of it when courtesies 
were given condescendingly and in a stinted manner, as in the 
case of Simon the Pharisee, and he appreciated what seemed 
to others excessive display of affection as in the case of the 
alabaster box of ointment. 

It is a sign of his waning popularity that now, returning to 
Capernaum, no crowds meet him, and instead of the cordial 
enthusiasm of former returns, he meets a dun for his temple 
tax. The demand came when he was least able to pay it. He 
and the disciples had had long journeys into distant parts. 



284 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



where he had few if any friends to minister to him. They had 
been away to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and later to 
C3esarea Philippi. These journeys had cost money, and had 
brought in little to the treasury. Now the demand came, and 
perhaps in the spirit of criticism, to make a test case. There 
were a few Jews who had refused to pay the tax so long as 




THE COIN IN THE FISH'S MOUTH — ( SPAGNOLETTO, T588-1656) 

Jerusalem was in the hands of the Romans. Would Jesus 
claim fellowship with them? Or would one making so great 
claims as he was understood to make submit to taxation? It 
was, to cavilers, an interesting question. 

Peter had answered at once, perhaps from his knowledge 
of Jesus' former payments, perhaps on general principles, per- 



THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 



285 



haps impulsively and without good reason, perhaps from a 
desire to avoid all possible trouble with the Jews. When he 
went to Jesus about it, Jesus anticipated him, and asked, "Do 
the kings of the earth exact tribute of their own children or 
the children of their subjects?" Peter answered, "Of their 




THE TRIBUTE MONEY — (TITIAN, I477-I5/6) 

subjects." "Then," Jesus might have said, "the princes of the 
royal household are free. You have acknowledged me as the 
Son of God. But the Son of God is not tributary to the temple 
of God. I am greater than the temple." For the tax was for 
the temple. He might have said, "Shall I, the Redeemer, pay 
for the redemption of my soul? Shall T, the real Shekinah, 



286 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

pay for this degenerate temple, now forsaken by the visible 
presence of God? Shall I, the great Sacrifice, pay to support 
obsolete rites? The destruction of this temple is at hand; and 
this treasure will be used by the Romans to erect a temple to 
Jupiter — can I contribute toward this idolatry? A thousand 
times, No!" 

So we might reason. On such hair-splitting many a theo- 
logical system is built. But Jesus says, "The Son is free, and 
he whom the Son makes free is free also; nevertheless, we will 
not strain at gnats. Lest we should cause any to stumble, 
pay it." 




A MODERN SCRIBE 



Free Jesus was as the Son of God, yet subject to the tax 
as the Son of man, and it was as the Son of man that he chose 
to live. We are afraid of inconsistency. Jesus did the most 
inconsistent things, as they might be interpreted, with no fear 
of inconsistency. Had he said what he did and refused to 
pay the money, we should have had no trouble in expounding 
the lessons of the incident; or had he said nothing and paid the 
tax, we could have interpreted the lesson. Jesus knew the 
higher consistency. We should say, "Jesus having announced 
his divinity, could not consistently pay the tax. He must 
adhere to his announcement." Jesus cared less to save his 
consistencv than to save men. 



THE DIVINE TAX-PAYER 287 

We are disposed to think about our rights. We have rights, 
and ought sometimes to maintain them. But Jesus, while he 
asserted his rights and demanded their recognition, immedi- 
ately ignored them. He received the descending Spirit and 
accepted its meaning, and then went to be tempted of the 
devil. He heard the voice from heaven promising that the 
Father would glorify his name, and then went to Gethsemane. 
He announced to Pilate that he could have twelve legions 
of angels, and was to sit on the clouds as judge of all men, 
and then took up his cross and carried it until he tottered and 
fell. He asserted that the tax was not justly due from him, 
and then he paid it. 

How completely Jesus identified himself with humanity! 
The same coin paid for himself and Peter. He might easily 
have emphasized the difference between Peter and himself by 
saying, "You will find a drachma in the fish's mouth; for me 
you may pay with that; then sell the fish and pay your own, 
and learn that mine is provided by divine power, while thine 
must be supplied by human effort." Doubtless he intended 
thus more fully to identify himself with men. Finally, we 
must notice that the coin was not the sacred shekel, but the 
Roman didrachma. The letter of the law commanded pay- 
ment in the holy coin of Israel: Jesus, even when procuring 
the coin by such means, was content with the secular equiva- 
lent. To provide the sacred coin the money-changers had 
their booths in the temple; but Jesus, with all power at his 
command, ignored the letter of the law, and paid the temple 
tax of the Son of God — and Peter's with it — in the coin of 
Caesar. 




Obverse- Reverse 

THE SACRED SHEKEL — SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL 



CHAPTER XXVI 



JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 

The Bible exhibits us the childhood of many of its most 
eminent characters. Joseph and David meet us first in their 
early boyhood. Moses and Samuel are known to us from their 
birth. We stand beside the cradle of John the Baptist and ask 
with others of the company, "What manner of child shall 
this be?" We meet Timothy in his youth, and are carried back 
still farther by Paul's reminiscence to his childhood in the 
home of his mother and grandmother. Jesus came into the 
world as a little child. His advent has given to childhood a 
new significance and a new place in literature. The babe in 
the manger, the child increasing in wisdom and stature, the 
boy in the temple, are all subjects which enlist our ready 
interest and enhance our estimate of the beauty and promise 
of holy childhood. 

Three incidents in the life of Jesus afford our chief source 
of information concerning his estimate of childhood. One of 
these forms the theme of his discourse in answer to the ques- 
tion of the disciples, "Who is greatest in the kingdom of 
heaven?" (Matt. 18: 1-14.) Another is his blessing the children 
brought him by their parents, with the words that have glad- 
dened the hearts of parents then and ever since, "Suffer little 
children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such 
is the kingdom of heaven." The third is his refusal to silence 
the children who sang his praises in the temple, and his inter- 
pretation of the words of the Psalmist (Matt. 19: 13-15), "Out 
of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected 
praise." The last echo of the popular joy that greeted him as 
Messiah and escorted in triumph to the city and the temple 

2R8 



JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 289 

comes to us from the voices of the children singing, "Hosanna 
to the Son of David" (Matt. 21: 1-16). 

The first incident recorded occurred through a dispute 
among the disciples concerning the greatest in the kingdom 
of heaven. They were not interested in the abstract question, 
as we might infer from Matthew's account taken by itself. 
Mark tells us (9: 33, 34) that while on their way to Capernaum 
that day they disputed among themselves which of their 
number should be greatest. Jesus allowed the discussion to 
take its own course, and when they arrived at Capernaum the 
question was as remote as ever from settlement. 

Peter might have maintained that he was the greatest, since 
Jesus had helped pay Peter's tax and left the others to shift 
for themselves. It is significant that he entered no such claim, 
or if he did the others did not concede it. Nor did Peter ever 
claim, or the others concede, pre-eminence because of the 
words of Jesus, "Upon this rock I will build my church," The 
question of relative greatness, which recurred to the close of 
Christ's ministry, shows that the apostles had no such idea 
of Peter's authority as has sometimes been assumed. 

It was an unhappy company that returned, wearied and un- 
welcomed, to Capernaum. Each was displeased with the 
others and ashamed of himself; and there was no little justice 
in both feelings. After they were seated in the house and 
alone, and very likely after supper, Jesus asked them, "What 
was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?" But 
they held their peace; and when at last they must say some- 
thing, instead of giving a direct answer they proposed to Jesus 
the question of the day. "And he sat down and called the 
twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the 
same shall be last of all, and servant of all." That was his 
introduction, and also his application. It did not answer their 
question, but it gave the truth co-ordinate with the answer. 
It told them that they were in clanger of becoming least in 
the kingdom, and were indeed lessening their hold upon it in 
exact ratio to their strife for greatness. It was a restatement 
of the paradox so often reiterated in the teachings of Jesus, 



2Q0 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

and never so plainly taught as by his life, that he who would 
save his life shall lose it, and he who loses it saves it. 

At this point Jesus gave the twelve an object lesson. A 
child or group of children from a neighboring home, with 
innocent curiosity, stood near the door. Capernaum at this 
time was Jesus' home, and the child doubtless knew him. It 
is likely that Jesus' former kindness to the little ones of the 
village assured the child in advance of a welcome. It is not 
unlikely that he had been there before and had been caressed 
by the Saviour. At any rate, when Jesus spoke to him he 
came readily at his call and took without reluctance the seat 
offered him. We can picture to ourselves the scene as Jesus 
sat, his hand gently stroking the child's hair, while his disciples, 
self-condemned and marveling, and the child, half understand- 
ing the words, but yielding unresisting to the caress, listened 
to the discourse that followed. 

"Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in 
no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." The question of 
entering precedes that of relative greatness. Their spirit was 
opposed even to entrance. By the kingdom of heaven is not 
meant heaven itself. To think of it as existing only in worlds 
to come is an unauthorized limitation of our thought. The 
kingdom is already established in heaven; our prayer is that 
even as it is there, so may it come upon earth, where already it 
has begun. 

By becoming as little children is meant that we shall become 
childlike, not childish, in our relations to God. We need not 
sigh for the immaturity of childhood or its irresponsibility. 
The true child of God will not wish to be one whit less a man. 
and will by reason of his childlikeness be the more manly. 

The margin of the Revised Version makes an interesting- 
correction in verse 4, "Whosoever therefore shall humble 
himself as this little child, the same is greater in the kingdom 
of heaven." Greater than whom? Greater than his former 
self. The word greatest inevitably suggests a comparison with 
others; the word greater suggests a constant out-growing of 
self. It is still true that he who most fullv does this is Greatest; 



JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 



291 



but this is not the thought. Just so soon as, measuring our- 
selves against our neighbor, we take note of our growth in 
childlikeness as more manifest than his, we lose the spirit and 
our gain in stature. But we become greater by rising "on 
stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things." John 
the Baptist decreased, that Jesus might increase; and when his 




CHRIST AND THE CHILDREN — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



decline was most complete, when he was deserted and in 
danger and in doubt, just at the time of awful blackness, when 
he even questioned whether he had not diminished out of God's 
sight, Jesus said of him that among those born of women no 
greater had ever lived. 

But how shall a man become great by becoming small? 
Faith balanced upon a paradox seems to have a precarious 



292 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

footing. How shall a man maintain it? Will he not stumble 
and cause others to stumble? Woe to him if he does! What 
seems an uncertain poise is indeed the one stable equilibrium 
in the universe. To Jesus the thought of increased greatness 
by the outgrowth of self was no paradox at all. He beggared 
himself that of his increased wealth he might enrich us. He 
humbled himself that by his higher exaltation he might exalt 
us. He emptied himself that of his increased fulness we might 
all receive. Only the heedless and the half-hearted will stum',' 
in the path the Saviour trod. 

But what about cutting off the hand that offends? for Jesus 
spoke of this in the same connection. We shall answer more 
at length in the next chapter. These terrible verses must be 
interpreted according to the laws of rhetoric. No man has a 
right to mutilate himself, for no man has a right to decrease 
his power for good. It would be better for a man to part with 
a hand or foot than to lose his life, and ten thousand times has 
the wounded man chosen to do so. But in the moral sphere 
the amputation is moral also, and not physical. The organ tha f 
sins is sinless, for sin is of the soul; to cut off the hand or pluck 
out the eye would leave the soul still corrupt. Wherefore, 
spare the hand and eye for the service of God, and amputate 
sin in the soul itself. He who, for the love of a cherished sin 
refuses to become a little child, need not think he forfeits some 
part only of his honor in the kingdom of heaven. He who 
causes another to stumble need desire no comfort from the 
old heresy of Cain. Better than that he stumble himself and 
be consumed in the hell of his own passion would it be to 
enter into life maimed; better than that he cause a child to 
stumble that he should be drowned. It is terrible to stumble 
one's self; it is doubly so to cause another to stumble. 

Jesus was childlike but never childish. He held in stable 
equilibrium the antithetic truth of self-renunciation and self- 
assertion. To be a child of God and a king among men 
involved no self-contradiction to him, but each was possible 
because of the perfection of the other. 

Jesus had passed from the theme of mere childhood to the 
consideration of the broader theme; yet the thought of the 



JESUS AiND THE CHILDREN 



293 



child all the time had been present in his speech, and now he 
returned again to it, but with the enlarged meaning given by 
the second part of his discourse. Have these words been terri- 
ble? It is only because the soul is of so great value that the 
most terrible measures are justified in saving it. Every pain 
caused by the surgeon's knife is a tribute to the value of human 













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CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN — (REMBRANDT, 1607-1669) 



life. But God is more than the good surgeon who will sacri- 
fice his patient's arm in order to save his life; he himself endures 
sacrifice for the patient's sake. 

Here our Saviour's words melt from the sternest to the 
tenderest. God is not only the surgeon but the shepherd. The 
Revised Version omits verse n, which appears to have been 



294 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



added irom Luke 19: 10, "For the Son of man is come to seek 
and to save that which was lost." Be it so: the thought is 
still there. To choose between two losses for another may 
seem easy, but God chooses rather to sacrifice himself than lose 
his child. The one sheep gone from a hundred seems to an 
outsider a small loss — what shepherd would not gladly be 
assured of a maximum loss of one per cent? — but with care 
and love out of all proportion to what seems his relative value, 
God seeks the individual sheep that he may save him. "And 
if it so be that he find it, he rejoiceth," with a joy incompre- 
hensible except as viewed from God's own desire that not one 
of these little ones should perish. 

All the time the child sits in wonder, as well he may. Dimly 
he realizes the Saviour's meaning, as do we all, but in its 
breadth and length and depth and height it passeth knowledge. 
As we study these verses and ponder the nature of childlike- 
ness, its purity, its trustfulness, its reliance on the love of the 
Father, and think again of the kingdom of heaven into which 
childlikeness gives entrance, we may rejoice anew in the words: 
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us that we should be called children of God: and such we are. 
Beloved, now are we children of God." 




SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN — (VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 



CHAPTER XXVII 



FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 

In connection with his lesson illustrated with the little child, 
Jesus for the second, and so far as is recorded the last time, 
definitely spoke of the Church. The promise of authority 
made to Peter at Csesarea Philippi is now repeated to them 
all, and bestowed likewise on "two or three" who in coming- 
time shall unite together in his name in the organized fellow- 
ship of the Church. In case of disagreement, the final appeal 
is not to Peter, but to the Church. 

The question of the Church came up incidentally. The 
lesson had been on the childlike spirit, and was a gentle rebuke 
of the strife and self-seeking of the twelve. They were to seek 
each other's welfare, and forgive each other's faults. If an 
erring brother can be forgiven and restored, the one injured 
has not lost his self-respect in the forgiveness, but has gained 
his brother — and himself. Such a doctrine naturally aroused 
questions. How many times shall a man forgive? Peter set 
the limit interrogatively at seven times. But Jesus moved the 
bounds, and indefinitely — "until seventy times seven." 

Forgiveness is the doctrine most preached and least be- 
lieved. Science knows no forgiveness of sin, and theology has 
been busy hedging it about with qualifications; but it is com- 
mon, thank God, in real life among men, and this helps us to 
understand the gospel. It is an unfortunate rendering which 
the old version gives us of the noble words of Paul, "Forgiving 
one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" 
(Eph. 4: 32). God forgives us for our own sakes, and for his 
own sake. Jesus said, "I say not that I will pray the Father 
for you; for the Father himself loveth you" (John 16; 26, 27). 
What Paul says in the badly translated verse is, "Even as God 

295 



296 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

also in Christ forgave you." It is our duty and privilege to 
forgive as God forgives — forgive and forget. The forgetting 
is as important as the forgiveness, and completes it. 

We ought to forget our own failures and our own forgiven 
sins. Much more ought we to forget the faults and forgiven 
sins of others. There is a possible use to us in remembering 
our own faults as a matter of discipline and prudence; there 
is a sense in which we ought not wholly to forget them, but 
the reasons why we may not quite ignore our own outgrown 
faults and our own forgiven sins do not apply to our forgetting 
the frailties of others. 

"But," some men say, "that is just what I cannot do. I can 
forgive, but I cannot forget." 

I have not much faith in forgiveness that does not include 
forgetting. A person who forgives must let the offense drop 
out of mind, put it away by strength of will in the first instance; 
and then quietly ignore it till it ceases to be remembered. To 
cease to think about it is the crowning mental triumph of 
forgiveness, and it prepares the way for that later spiritual 
triumph of restored fellowship. Can we forgive, but not 
forget? Then the forgiveness is incomplete. So long as the 
offense is cherished, brooded over, it is unforgiven. 

God forgets our sins. That is, he ceases to cherish them 
in his mind, half unforgiven, as we do when we say we forgive 
but cannot forget. God forgives and forgets. "I will forgive 
their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more" (Jer. 
31: 34). By giving, when our left hand does not know what 
our right hand does, and forgiving and forgetting we become 
like God. When we say, "I will forgive but not forget," we 
really mean, "I am not ready to forgive." Let no man think 
that he has forgiven while he says, "I cannot forget." When 
he has ceased to think of it with bitterness he will have for- 
given. 

"But," asks someone, "must I forgive before forgiveness is 
asked? Surely you do not expect this of me?" 

It is behind this excuse that many a man harbors an un- 
christian spirit. He will not forgive until he is asked to forgive. 



FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 



297 



nor forget till he has forgiven. Let me relate an incident that 
illustrates what I want to teach upon this point. 

John Wesley once had a disagreement with his traveling 
companion of many years, and he and Joseph Bradford agreed 
to part. They retired for the night, each firm in his position, 
and each doubtless deploring in his heart the separation soon 
to follow between two friends so devoted and mutually help- 
ful. In the morning Wesley asked Bradford if he had consid- 
ered during the night their agreement to part. 

"Yes, sir," said Bradford. 

"And must we part?" inquired Wesley. 

"Please yourself, sir," said Bradford, grimly. 

"But will you ask my pardon?" demanded Wesley. 

"No, sir." 

"You won't?" 

"No, sir." 

"In that case," said Wesley, "I must ask yours." 

It was not the ending which Bradford anticipated. A 
moment he hesitated, and then, breaking into tears, he followed 
Wesley's example, and forgave and was forgiven. 

It might almost be laid down as a safe rule where there has 
been a quarrel, "If the other man will not ask your forgive- 
ness, ask his." It is astonishing often to find that the other 
man also has a grievance, real or imaginary; and it is beautiful 
to see how often he will forget it if the first concession is made 
to him. 

We pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." 
God forgives, freely, fully. Many a man remains unforgiven 
because unforgiving. Life is too short and our friends are too 
few to justify us in cherishing hatred and needless anger. Even 
if to us the wrong appears wholly on the other side there is 
something that can be conceded for love's sake. 

Jesus taught that the man who brings his offering to God 
and remembers that his brother hath aught against him should 
leave his gift before the altar, and go and be reconciled to his 
brother, and then offer his gift. The worship of God is so 
joined to fidelity toward men that the forgiving man is sure 



298 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

to be the forgiven man. If your enemy will not ask your 
forgiveness, ask his; and if he will not forgive you, then forgive 
him, whether or no. And having forgiven, forget. 

At this time John told Jesus how they had found one cast- 
ing out demons in his name, but had forbidden him because 
he followed not them. Fit type of the sectarian spirit that 
surely was, and as commendable for its zeal as it was lacking 
in good sense and charity. But Jesus answered. "Forbid him 
not; for there is no man which shall do a mighty work in my 
name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. For he that 
is not against us is for us" (Mark 9: 39, 40). 

At this same time Jesus repeated, and with more emphasis, 
those terrible words about self-mutilation, which have been 
so variously, and sometimes literally interpreted: 

"And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is good 
for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having thy two 
hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. And if thy 
foot cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is good for thee to 
enter into life halt, rather than having thy two feet to be cast 
into hell. And if thine eye cause thee to stumble, cast it out: 
it is good for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one 
eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell; where 
their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every 
one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good: but if the salt have 
lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in 
yourselves, and be at peace one with another" (Mark 9: 43-50). 

Gehenna was Jerusalem's offal heap, the valley where were 
burned the carcasses from the city. We are told to cut off 
the right hand and pluck out the right eye rather than be 
cast, soul and body, to creation's ash-heap. This is sometimes 
preached as if it were the whole gospel, and as though God's 
ideal were a church of maimed men and women, who had made 
the fearful choice between death and mutilation, and who live, 
saved by moral surgery. But the surgeon does not count his 
successes by his amputations, but rather by the limbs which 
he has been able to save from amputation. The Son of man 
came not to amputate but to save, not to condemn, but to 



FELLOWSHIP AND FORGIVENESS 



299 



restore, not to destroy but to fulfil. Paul tells us that if 
we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. The salt is for 
preserving, not for desolation; the fire is for refining, not for 
destruction; the surgeon is for restoring, and not until every 
other resource has failed, for amputation, and even when he 
amputates it is still to save. The Son of God is sent to save 
the world and not condemn the world. 

The undying worm and unquenchable fire are the symbols, 
not of torture, but of destruction. The worm is not the 




THE VALLEY OF HINNOM 



product of the fire, but of the decomposition for which the 
fire is the remedy. The fire is as fatal to the worm as to the 
carcass. Yet even the worm and the vulture have their place 
in removing decay when neither salt preserves nor fire con- 
sumes; so the tendency of evil to self-destructiveness is a fact 
of some moral significance. There still is waste in the moral 
world, and waste in the life of man. Every city has its 
gehenna where the fire of the clump is never quenched. But 
the city, wasteful as it is, has provided some economies in its 
wastes. The rag-picker and the junk-dealer grow rich out of 
the cast-ofT and waste products of civilized life, and the garbage 



300 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



is fed to swine and the offal fertilizes the field of the husband- 
man. Dickens' "Golden Dustman" illustrates the wealth that 
men find in the wastes of life. We are already past the undying 
worm in the utilization of municipal waste, and we build the 
unquenched fire where its ashes may fill waste spaces and 
prepare for future homes. So, we may hope, God's wastes are 
apparent rather than real. 




GEHENNA AND ACELDAMA 



We are at liberty to hope that creation will have no final 
dumping ground, and that nothing shall be thrown to the void 
when God hath made the pile complete. But we cannot forget 
that men now live in hell. Unsalted by self-restraint, they 
have reached the salt plain of desolation which is Sodom. Not 
purified by the fire of a discerning conscience, they are burned 
in the fire of passion till their souls are in the consuming 
flames. Whatever hells there are and are to be, some men are 
choosing destruction for themselves, now, and so far as they 
can, forever. The Son of man has come, not to add to their 
destruction which is suicidal, but to save them from themselves. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 

Up to this time we have usually had three parallel accounts 
of the life of Christ — Matthew, Mark and Luke having so 
much in common that they are known as the Synoptics, "those 
who see together." Where John relates an incident, it is com- 
monly something not found in any of the other gospels, 
though there are some exceptions, as that of the feeding of 
the five thousand, which is the only miracle, except the resur- 
rection of Christ, that is recorded in all the gospels. We now 
approach a new epoch in the life of Christ, a period of four or 
five months on which Matthew and Mark are silent. Luke 
alone gives us an account of the Persean ministry, which began 
in November and ended in March, and John interjects the 
account of the Feast of the Dedication in December, and the 
raising of Lazarus, apparently in January. It is Luke who 
gives us most of the few glimpses which we get of the broader 
attitude of Jesus toward the world outside Judaism. The inci- 
dents are few, for his personal work was mainly for "the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel," but the few that we have are 
illuminating. 

Several incidents near the beginning of the second half of 
the last year of his life shed light on the larger aspects of the 
ministry of Jesus. One of these is the mission of the seventy. 
As the number of the twelve apostles had its symbolic refer- 
ence to Israel, so the number of the seventy now sent forth 
had its reference to "the seventy nations" whom the Jews 
reckoned as constituting the rest of the world. The seventy 
constituted no permanent body like that of the apostles. It 
was a large company of evangelists sent for preparatory work 
into the places where he himself would come. We have no 

301 



302 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

reason to assume that none of them went farther than Jesus 
actually journeyed, but only that his intended journey assigned 
the general limit of their pilgrimages. The restriction given to 
the twelve is not here repeated, forbidding them to enter the 
cities of the Samaritans; indeed, Jesus himself soon after trr> 
attempted to visit a Samaritan city. That city did not receive 
him, but he refused to call down fire upon it, as the disciples 
wished. They knew not what manner of spirit they were of, 
nor did they know his larger love. 

If there were any cities on which at this time Jesus would 
have called down fire, they were those that he had loved most, 
and had done most to bless. Jesus was more than the meek 
and lowly Saviour, bearing uncomplainingly the sufferings 
inflicted upon him for human salvation. He was more than 
the self-denying and self-renouncing Lamb of God; he was 
the stern and uncompromising enemy of wickedness. He was 
the regal, authoritative representative of divine justice, as well 
as the hostage of divine grace. He had self-assertion as well 
as self-abnegation. The voice that uttered the beatitudes 
hurled words that were like stinging scorpions at the Phari- 
sees. The hand that was laid in healing upon the sick, held 
the scourge of small cords. As he was leaving Galilee he 
exhibited both severity and tenderness in the same discourse; 
we hear at once some of the most terrible warnings and the 
most gracious invitations that ever fell from his lips, "Woe 
unto thee Chorazin!" "Come unto me, and I will give you 
rest." 

Theologians used to discuss the question whether divine 
grace were irresistible, and whether human accord with the 
divine will was always in proportion to the divine effort. Thr 
passage would seem to afford a clear answer to the latter 
question. God wasted, so it would seem, on Capernaum and 
Chorazin, effort which would have resulted in the conversion 
of Tyre and Sidon. It is a sad fact that much of God's effort 
seems thus to waste itself. Probably it is not wasted. He 
who causes it to rain in the wilderness where no man is, has 
larger thoughts of economy and waste than those to which 



JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 



303 



we accustom ourselves. It is significant that the warning is 
against the misuse of exceptional opportunities. Capernaum 
was not the center of hostility against him. He did not expect 
to be crucified in Chorazin. The Sanhedrin did not hold in 
Bethsaida the court that was to condemn him. These cities 
were not bitterly hostile to Jesus. Probably, in a way, they 
were proud of the distinction which his residence had con- 
ferred on them. Many of his followers came from there. His 




A SAMARITAN VILLAGE 



best friends were residents of those places. These cities had 
once sent out eager throngs, running after Christ, around the 
lake and from shore to shore. Boats were at a premium when 
he came there, and those who could not obtain boats walked 
around the little sea. This eagerness had worn off. He was 
heard now with a languid interest. Truths which once seemed 
vital had now grown commonplace, and men who had once been 
eager had grown indifferent. The cities that had received the 



3°4 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



most had failed to respond in proportion to their blessings. 
This was the ground of their condemnation. 

But Jesus did not stop with condemnation. He closed his 
denunciation with a most tender entreaty. Some things in the 
Bible are true and would be true, no matter who spoke them. 
The multiplication table is true, though the whole universe 




COME UNTO ME — (THORWALDSEN) 

should deny it. It is right to love the good and hate the 
bad, no matter who teaches the one or defends the other. If 
Pythagoras first declared that the square on the hypothenuse 
of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares 
upon the other two sides, the fact that Pythagoras said so has 
historic interest, but adds nothing to the truth of the proposi- 
tion. The same is true of much that is in the Bible. But there 



JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 305 

are some things in the Bible which depend for their supreme 
authority and power over the human heart upon the person- 
ality of him who uttered them. The invitation and promise, 
"Come unto me and I will give you rest," is one of these utter- 
ances. It makes much difference to us who it is that gives this 
invitation, and couples it with this promise. For here is what 
no other master has commanded; what no other teacher can 
impart. Here is a promise which no other friend can fulfil 
than Jesus. "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." It is 
a command of supreme authority. It is an invitation of unpar- 




THE INN OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN 



alleled tenderness. . It is a promise of unapproachable richness, 
and a million times in the ages since the promise has been ful- 
filled. 

Soon after the beginning of this winter journey, Jesus was 
challenged by a lawyer who asked him the conditions of eternal 
life, and being told to love God and his neighbor, asked, "And 
who is my neighbor?" Jesus answered in the parable of the good 
Samaritan. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was famous 
for brigands in that day, and is not much more respectable 
now. Upon this road Jesus located the scene of his sermon 



306 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



story. It was a vivid story, true to life in every detail. A man, 
presumably a Jew, passing along this road, was robbed, 
stripped, and wounded. A priest and a Levite saw the man and 
passed by, but a Samaritan saw and helped him. Which of the 
men by his conduct had shown a recognition of the principle 
underlying God's commandment of love to men? But one 



r 



t >*„ 




THE GOOD SAMARITAN — (FRANK T. MERRILL) 



answer was possible. "He that showed mercy," heretic though 
he was. The application of Jesus was simple and direct: "Go 
thou and do likewise." So Jesus, who had rebuked his own 
cities in a contrast with Tyre and Sidon, sent the Jewish law- 
yer for his lesson of love to the Samaritan whose theology was 
wrong but whose heart was right. 



JESUS AND THE WORLD AT LARGE 307 

Not long after this Jesus had opportunity to test the relative 
gratitude of Jew and Samaritan in the healing of the ten lepers. 
The ingratitude of the nine did not reinfect them with leprosy 
or prevent their receiving the certificate of the priest that they 
were healed. Nor was it wholly strange that they were in haste 
to receive that certificate. Home, friends, business, all that 
was good in life was waiting for them, and grew unspeakably 
dear in their unexpected freedom. With the first leap of pure 
blood their pulses tingled with hopes that had long been dead 
within them. They started, they walked, they ran, they raced 
wildly toward that far distant temple, where the priest, who was 
also health officer, could restore them to their families. Who- 
ever has had a scarlet fever card on his house for months will 
know the eagerness of men to be certified as healed and safe 
members of the community. We need not blame them for 
being in a hurry; but their haste caused them to forget their 
gratitude, and they have come down to history as men who 
forgot to be thankful. All but one, and he the least likely, so 
it would have seemed, to engage the Master's attention or to 
appreciate his benefits. 

It is significant that our Lord found a Samaritan the one 
grateful man. Christ's own nation had come to receive bless- 
ings as a matter of course, and even to despise them. The 
gospel was soon to be preached to all the world; and it was 
well that these beginnings showed the disciples a little of the 
largeness of that world. In his discourse at Jerusalem on the 
Good Shepherd, Jesus declared himself to have other sheep 
not of the Jewish fold. Already he was finding a few of them, 
and bringing them to the fold and care of the Good Shepherd. 



CHAPTER XXIX 



THE DEMOCRACY OF CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF 

PRAYER 

Jesus departed from Galilee for the last time before his 
crucifixion, in November, A. D. 29 (Matt. 19: 1, 2; Mark 10: 1; 
Luke 8: 51). He was rejected by the Samaritans (Luke 9: 
52-56), to whom he applied for entertainment, and crossing" 
the Jordan below the Sea of Galilee, went into Peraea. 
He visited Jerusalem at the Feast of the Dedication, Decem- 
ber 20 to 27, A. D. 29, and returned to Peraea. He went to 
Bethany in January A. D. 30, on the occasion of the death of 
Lazarus (John 11). As this return to publicity raised new 
plots against his life, he went to "a city called Ephraim," in 
"the country near the wilderness" (John n: 54). He returned 
again to Persea, and from it took up his last journey to Jerusa- 
lem by way of Jericho. 

The name Persea is that given by Josephus to what in the 
Bible is called "beyond Jordan." Josephus said of it in his 
day that it was larger than Galilee and less fertile. It is a high 
table-land, broken by deep and picturesque ravines. The 
Mishna constantly refers to Persea as one of the provinces of 
the land of Israel, the other two being Judaea and Galilee. 
Samaria, of course, was omitted. Persea connected the other 
two. By crossing the Jordan below Gennesaret and recrossing 
at Jericho, a traveler from Galilee could attend the feasts at 
Jerusalem without passing through Samaria. 

Some time in the autumn of his last year's ministry the 
Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod would kill him, and advised 
him to depart from Galilee. But he answered that he had no 
fear of "that fox" Herod; that there was only one place where 
a prophet could die, and that was Jerusalem. This was a 

308 



CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 



309 



strange rejoinder, and must have surprised the Pharisees. But 
it was no mere taunt, and Jesus followed his prediction with 
the pathetic lament. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth 
the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how 
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as r 
hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would 
not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate; and I say 
unto you, Ye shall not see me, until ye shall say, Blessed is he 
that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Luke 13:34-35.) 




JESUS AMONG PEASANTS — (FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 ) 



He departed, however, from the jurisdiction of Herod, but 
joi neyed toward Jerusalem, by way of Perasa. 

The ministry of Jesus in Peraea is a sort of brief epitome of 
his ministry in Galilee, repeated here. There were crowds for 
a time, and works of healing, notably that of a demoniac; and 
there was a woman healed on the Sabbath greatly to the scan- 
dal of the ruler of the synagogue. One of the chief Pharisees 
invited him to a feast on the Sabbath, and he attended, rebuk- 



310 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

ing the self-seeking which he saw there, and speaking the par- 
able of the supper and the guests that would not come. He 
offended the Pharisees as he had done in Galilee, and warned 
the people as he had already warned the disciples, against 
them. He rebuked a man who asked him to settle a dispute 
between him and his brother about property, and taught a 
lesson against covetousness in the parable of the rich fool. He 
prophesied that the kingdom of heaven was surely to grow as 
the mustard seed and the leaven; but he declared that in it 
many of the first should be last, and the last first. 

But as the teaching of Jesus grew wider in the scope of 
those included in its benefits, it grew more stern toward those 
who had had and despised those benefits. When he was asked, 
"Lord, are there few that be saved?" he did not answer directly, 
but declared that many who were confident of their salvation 
were mistaken: 

"When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath 
shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock 
at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and 
say to you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin 
to say, We did eat and drink in thy presence, and thou didst 
teach in our streets; and he shall say, I tell you, I know not 
whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 
There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye 
shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, 
in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast forth without. 
And they shall come from the east and west, and from the 
north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. 
And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are 
first which shall be last" (Luke 13: 25-29). 

At this time the news arrived that there had been a 
slaughter at Jerusalem. Certain Galilaeans had been slain by 
Pilate. We know not what had been their crime, but they 
died as criminals. Besides these, eighteen men had lost their 
lives in the fall of a structure at Siloam,- a little village note- 
worthy for its reservoir. 

To the Romans the death of the Galilaeans was just retribu- 
tion for their wicked rebellion; to the Jews, the death of the 



CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 311 

men engaged in putting up a structure with money which 
Pilate had taken from the treasury where it had been conse- 
crated to God, would be considered a divine judgment. The 
contrast is apparently Christ's reason for speaking of both 
companies at once. The Jews thought one company, and the 
Romans the other, to have been greater sinners than others. 
Jesus refutes both errors at once, and calls upon his hearers 
for immediate repentance lest they, too, fall under divine con- 
demnation. They were all sinners, and all, the Pharisees 
included, had need of repentance and forgiveness. 

We need not wonder that such teaching enraged the Phari- 
sees. From this time Jesus endeavored to do less public work, 
and to teach his disciples the most important lessons before 
his crucifixion. Among these lessons was one on prayer. 

A helpful little volume is entitled, "With Christ in the 
School of Prayer." The title is a misnomer. It was John, the 
forerunner who kept the school of prayer. Long before this 
the Pharisees had complained that Jesus feasted while John 
and his disciples fasted and made prayers. The disciples of 
John had echoed the complaint. Now, near the end of his 
ministry, the disciples of Jesus came to him, saying, "Lord, 
teach us to pray; as John also taught his disciples." The dis- 
ciples felt neglected, in comparison with the disciples of John. 
But if Jesus taught little about prayer, he certainly prayed, and 
his own prayer furnished the occasion of the request. Much 
as he prayed himself, he had taught them but one short prayer, 
and that more than a year before. 

I am not disposed to lay emphasis on verbal differences be- 
tween the gospels; but I cannot fail to note that Jesus now 
taught them the same prayer, but in shorter form. The 
extended form of the prayer as given in the prayer-book from 
Matthew contains sixty-nine words; in the revised version of 
Luke there are only thirty-nine. Thirty-nine words in the 
great universal prayer; and our creeds extend to thirty-nine 
articles! 

In this shorter form Jesus does not say "Our Father," but 
only "Father;" by this time they ought to have learned the 



312 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

lesson of brotherhood taught in the pronoun. He does not 
say ''Who art in heaven;" he himself had been revealing God 
as our Father also on earth, to make our heaven for us. 'Thy 
kingdom come" has not again set over against it the more pas- 
sive "Thy will be done," and "Bring us not into temptation" 
has no subjoined petition for deliverance from evil. 

As has been said, I do not emphasize these differences. I 
merely note that, if Jesus taught the Lord's prayer twice, with 
an interval of more than a year between, the later form was 
the shorter. Prayer being communion of the soul with its God, 
cannot wholly be taught. It arises out of kinship of God and 
his child. 

The Mohammedan knows just how often he must pray and 
what his attitude must be, and which way he should face, and 
what words he should say, but the Christian has no such pre- 
cise rules to guide him. The heathen's prayer assumes the 
indifference or hostility of his god; but the Christian's prayer 
is based on his sonship. 

Jesus here taught the parable of the grudging friend who, 
because of importunity, would rise at midnight to assist a 
neighbor. If importunity could thus triumph over unkind- 
ness, much more would it avail with a willing Father. 

Jesus taught that prayer is not to remove God's unwilling- 
ness, because God wills the good of his children. 

"And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, 
and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For 
every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; 
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. And of which 
of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him 
a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if 
he shall ask an Qgg, will he give him a scorpion? If ye then, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, 
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
Spirit to them that ask him?" (Luke 11:9-13.) 

In the light of this teaching, let us return a moment to the 
account of the Lord's prayer as given in Matthew, and con- 
sider the democracy of Christ's doctrine of prayer. God is 



CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 



313 



our Father; all men in him may rise to a common level of 
approach. Therefore, said Jesus, "When thou prayest, enter 
into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy 
Father which is in secret" (Matt. 6: 6). 

We have done well to adopt the phraseology of Jesus, which 
he himself adopted from the current language of his time, of 
a "kingdom of God." It emphasizes the solidarity of interest 




THE CHURCH OF THE LORD S PRAYER ON MOUNT OF OLIVES 
WITH TABLETS CONTAINING THE PRAYER IN 32 LANGUAGES 



which men have in the government of God, and the sociality 
of their effort which centralizes all righteous endeavor, and all 
normal relationship. But we mistake if from our thought of 
a kingdom we eliminate that democratic element which is so 
strongly characteristic of the teaching of Jesus concerning the 
method of God's government. "Thou when thou prayest. 
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray 
to thy Father." Thou, when thou hast a message for the 
King, go direct to the King! Our fathers fought for the right 



3 i 4 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

of petition, and gained that right in human government; it 
was theirs already in the divine government. They were con- 
tent if they might elect representatives who should speak to 
the kings of earth on their behalf; but the King of kings 
receives his humblest subject into his presence. The United 
States ambassador at the court of Saint James has lying on his 
desk a thick and much used book on whose cover is inscribed 
"Presentations at Court." A considerable part of his business 
is in securing for American citizens the right to appear for a 
single moment before the king of England; but the King of 
earth and heaven welcomes every man who will come to the 
throne of grace. 

It is no mere sentimental value which these words of Jesus 
give to human life. Henceforth priestcraft becomes an open 
delusion. There is room still for any man according to his 
ability, learning or piety, to instruct, guide, and help his neigh- 
bor; there is room for the special student and the interpreter; 
there is room for the herald and the evangelist; but there is 
no room for any man who pretends to a monopoly of divine 
grace. Through Jesus Christ we come to God direct. He is 
the Way; he is not in the way. God and the soul stand face to 
face with no man between. Thou, when thou prayest, enter 
the church? Yes, and let the worship of others inspire thine 
own. Thou, when thou prayest, buy a prayer-book? Yes, and 
let the noble utterances of past ages give form to thine own 
crude aspirations. Thou, when thou prayest, go listen to a 
sermon? Yes, so shall the sermon, born of prayer, beget a 
spirit of prayer in thee. But the right to pray is thine own, and 
is not conferred by the Church, nor limited by the prayer-book, 
nor bestowed by the minister or priest. In the kingdom of God 
each man is peer of the realm, with his own coat of arms, his 
own name and standing, his own right to be heard in the 
Spirit of Christ. 

This is the charter of our liberties; this is the soul's declara- 
tion of independence; this is the inestimable boon conferred by 
Jesus on all who come to God in a spirit of loving obedience. 
In so far as liberty exists among men it is the outgrowth of 



CHRIST'S DOCTRINE OF PRAYER 315 

this principle; for how shall any man call his brother a ser- 
vant, when they are peers before God? This is fundamental 
democracy. 

Jesus had occasion to speak again of prayer near the end of 
his ministry in Persea (Luke 18: 1-14). He spoke two parables 
illustrating the doctrine of prayer. The first was of the unjust 
judge, who through very weariness because of her importu- 
nity, did justice to a poor widow. The lesson was, that if perse- 
verance would accomplish such things even with an unjust 
judge, patient and continued prayer would surely avail with 
God, even though the answer was delayed. The other parable 
w T as of the two men w T ho went to the temple together. One 
addressed God in a speech of self-praise, void of the spirit of 
prayer. The other, who felt too wicked to look up to heaven, 
merely said, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and went away 
forgiven. 

It is this doctrine of prayer, this doctrine of the essential 
oneness of our interests with those of God, that enables us to 
afrirm that God's will is the same for all worlds, and to be con- 
fident that he who comes into the righteousness of Christ is on 
a foundation that is sure, and endures to all eternity. The life 
of prayer is eternal life. He that believeth hath eternal life. 
His life is one with that life of God whose righteous princi- 
ples vary not in any age or in any world. There are some 
things which change often, and change even while we attempt 
to study and classify them; there are some that change none 
too rapidly, and some that do not change fast enough. There 
are some things that might be otherwise than they are, and it 
would be well; and some that might be otherwise and be no 
better or worse. But there are some things that must ever 
abide, unchanged to all eternity, and these are those things 
that are discovered in a life of prayer. 

Men once were in doubt whether to pray to one God or 
many. This is no longer our perplexity. Modern science 
has driven us to a more certain and a more uncompromising 
monotheism. Diminished room is left in the universe for a 
devil, and none for other gods than One. We cannot say that 



316 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

the sunshine is from God, and the storm is from the devil, for 
the sun creates the storm. The only God that now is possi- 
ble is the God of the pleasant sunshine and of the withering- 
heat; the God of the cooling breeze and of the tornado. Our 
present problem is the question whether the one God hears 
prayer. Jesus anticipated the present needs of men. Never 
in the history of the world was it more important than now 
that men should know that God may be prayed to as Father, 
and that he hears and answers prayer. 

We think of prayer as a privilege or problem, a desire or a 
duty, according to our temperament or mood or training. We 
recognize in our lives a need of prayer, and we come to the 
act of prayer halting as we query whether natural law leaves 
room for prayer. But we shall continue to pray. We shall 
rise above our doubts in response to our soul's needs, and find 
God in our dangers, our temptations, and our aspirations. The 
best answer to our doubts about prayer is the fact and the 
need of prayer. 

But the doctrine of prayer as we have it from Christ is more 
than mere command or permission to pray; it is a philosophy 
of our relations to God, which relations find expression in a 
mutual communication. We pray and God encourages out 
prayer because our souls are akin to his eternal Spirit. There 
is a possible ground for prayer in the assumed insignificance 
of the petitioner, who prays only that he may avert divine 
wrath; but Christ's doctrine of prayer is that our Father 
knows our needs, and desires that we shall speak to him and 
hear his answer. It is this doctrine that gives dignity to life, 
and power to united or individual effort in the spirit of Christ. 



CHAPTER XXX 



UNTIL HE FIND IT 

One day as Jesus was making his journey through Peraea, 
a man prompted more perhaps by curiosity than earnestness, 
asked, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" (Luke 13: 23.) 

Surely this was a question that deserved an answer. It is 
one that has arisen in every thoughtful mind. Yet the kind 
of answer which it deserved depended less on the form of the 
question than on the point of view of the questioner. It 
would seem as if this man asked not by reason of concern for 
himself, nor yet pity for others, but from something hardly 
more than idle curiosity. There are thousands of people like 
him. There are men who never had interest enough in astron- 
omy to pay a dollar for a book that would teach them its first 
principles, but who weary an astronomer whom they chance to 
meet with senseless questions about communications from 
Mars and the inhabitants of the sun. There are people who 
have never given an hour's serious study to any single flower 
who in the presence of a botanist spring up with interrogation 
points as a wooded swamp springs thick with Indian pipes, 
and as these nature's interrogation points are degenerate flow- 
ers, so often, heedless questions denote neither depth of moral 
earth nor fertility of purpose, but rather the morbid impulse 
of a damp and shallow soul. 

Christ gave a serious answer to an idle question. It was a 
question that conveyed an implied censure of God, for it 
looked in that day as though few would find the way of life, 
and it was an easy thing for the thoughtless observer to cen- 
sure God for that condition of affairs. 

Many people have pronounced views on eternal punishment 
who are making no adequate effort to escape it. They have 

3 T 7 



318 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

some reason to be interested. But it would be more profitable 
if their interest expressed itself otherwise. A man's fitness for 
heaven is not to be tested by his opinion of hell, nor is his 
character dependent on his thought of the precise condition 
of things in the other world. "Lord are there few that be 
saved?" is a question that does not of necessity imply an 
earnest desire for salvation. It is asked curiously ten times 
where it is asked once in downright earnestness. Around the 
question have raged unprofitable controversies. In them Jesus 
refused to bear a share. He told the man to strive earnestly 
to be among the saved, which was good advice, whether the 
saved are to be many or few. It may be doubted whether 
any man is very much in earnest who professes interest in the 
proportion of the saved and lost, who does not himself seek to 
be among the former. 

Jesus' answer did, however, convey some information on the 
condition of affairs then. He said that the multitudes were 
pressing into the broad way, and that few were seeking the 
narrow way. It need not be inferred that he meant that it 
always would be so. It is a fair question, to be answered by 
what men are doing to-day, whether this has continued to be 
true. 

We have been told a hundred times that Jesus answered, 
"Agonize to enter in at the strait gate." He did not say it. 
He used the Greek word from which we derive the word agon- 
ize, but that Greek word meant strive. It is unfair to take our 
derived meanings and impute them back to Christ. It is earn- 
estness, not agony, that takes men to heaven. Agony is sin, 
or comes by reason of it. It sometimes costs agony to get 
into heaven, but that is not God's preferred way. The way 
to heaven should be a way of joy, though a way of honest 
struggle. 

There is always a strait gate that leads to success, and few 
in proportion find it. Not all the men in Chicago who started 
out to become rich a generation ago own department stores 
on State street. For every merchant prince within the ele- 
vated loop there are a thousand who have small shops on 



UNTIL HE FIND IT 



319 



obscure streets or in country towns. These need not be counted 
failures, though they are not the kinds of success for which 
their possessors strove. But the real failures are not lacking. 
We are deceived sometimes by our generalities. It is theo- 
retically possible for any American boy to become president; 
but it is mathematically impossible for every American boy to 
do so. Not every private can become a general, though any 
private may, so far as army regulations go. Not every tar in 
the forecastle becomes an admiral. The way to the highest 




FEED MY SHEEP — (RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 

forms of success in every department of life is straight and 
narrow. It is open to any one, but it is not entered by every 
one, 

This is where men talk nonsense about salvation. Salvation 
means more or less. We are all saved from something. Hap- 
pily, there are some forms of degradation which have become 
impossible to us. Manhood is salvation; civilization is salva- 
tion; good society is salvation — from some things. But none 
of these will assuredly save a soul from being the slave of 
desire, however that desire be lifted above mere brutality by 
external conditions that shape the tastes without forming the 



3 20 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

character. To be saved as Christ understood it, is to be master 
over one's own life, through the strength of God. It is thus 
to be master also over the world. It is not to reverse gravita- 
tion, but to control passion within and temptation without. 

There are many men favorably disposed to religion, but not 
so many strongly in earnest about it. There are many men 
who are glad to have their children in Sunday school, and who 
count that fact sufficiently virtuous to justify themselves in 
Sunday golf. The gate still is too strait for some men, not 
for their ability, but for their earnestness. It is not a question 
that should first concern a man whether the proportion of the 
saved is large or small, but whether he himself is willing to 
enter the gate of earnestness, the gate of sacrifice, the gate of 
joyous but strenuous endeavor, beyond which lies his own and 
humanity's highest good. 

The harsh words of Jesus concerning the Pharisees, repeated 
here as in Galilee, left him few friends among them. Jesus 
denounced them because they were unwilling to accept him, 
but warned them of the great cost that would be involved. 
He told them that a king about to make war always counted 
the army against him and his own as well, but he warned them 
in the parable of the unjust steward, that what was theirs then 
would not be theirs forever, and that they would do well to 
make wise use of their opportunities. With direct aim at those 
for whom much had been done, and who had been selfish in 
their blessings, he spoke the parable of Dives and Lazarus. 

This was a period of parables with Jesus. "Without a par- 
able spake he not unto them." Among all the parables uttered 
by Jesus none has touched so many hearts, none has given to 
the world so clear a view of the Fatherhood of God as that of 
The Lost Son. It is the center and heart of a cluster of five 
parables, apparently spoken at or about the same time, and 
is the climax of that group of three which have always been 
especially dear to the children of God — The Lost Coin, The 
Lost Sheep, The Lost Son. As the time of Jesus' crucifixion 
drew near, and the opposition of the priests and Prarisees was 
culminating in plots against his life, Jesus began to define 



UNTIL HE FIND IT 321 

more closely the conditions of entrance into his kingdom, to 
show how little it depended upon descent from Abraham, upon 
external conformity to the law, or upon formal orthodoxy. 
His sympathetic auditors became more exclusively publicans 
and sinners, with whom, on more than one occasion, he ate, 
greatly to the scandal of his critics. "This man receiveth sin- 
ners, and eateth with them!" was their horrified exclamation. 
The reply of Jesus, in substance, is, "If a man has a hundred 
sheep and lose one, will he receive it if it return? — nay, will he 
not seek it, even to the extent of seeming to neglect the rest 




A PALESTINE SHEPHERD 



of his flock? If a woman lose a tenth of her dowry, will she 
receive it if some one find it and hand it to her? — nay, will 
she not search for it with all diligence, and celebrate with joy 
the finding of it? If a man have two sons and lose one, will 
he receive him when he returns to his father? — nay, will he 
not watch for him and run to meet him with joy?" 

We need not take up in detail the incidents of this most per- 
fect story. It is most comprehensive of all parables. It treats 
of a soul prior to its alienation from God, of its deflection, its 
depth of sin, its repentance, its return, and its forgiveness. 



322 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

There is material here for a treatise on systematic theology. 
We can only touch on a few of its salient points. 

First, let us notice that the sinful son was still a son. The 
sheep which the shepherd sought was not a goat or a wolf; 
it was lost, but it still belonged to the shepherd, and he sought 
it because it was his own. The coin which the woman lost was 
not at once repudiated as a counterfeit ; it was still a coin bear- 
ing the image of the king, and, though lost, belonged to the 
woman who sought it; and she sought it because it was her 
own. The prodigal was not an alien, born outside the father's 
house and rescued and adopted; he was a son before he left 
the father's house, and to the father he still remained "my 
son." "All souls are mine, saith the Lord." The sinner is 
God's. He is not his own; he is God's by creation, by redemp- 
tion, by every possible right. The sinner is not a child of the 
devil whom God is endeavoring to lure away from his own 
paternity and give to him a fictitious relation to himself. In 
the image of God man was created, and whether he lives or 
dies, lives righteously or sins, his life belongs to God. 

Here was the son's initial error. What he had was his own, 
so he thought. It rightly fell to him. He may have flattered 
himself on the just division which he demanded, and even have 
prided himself that in demanding only a third, the portion of a 
younger son, when by higher right he might have thought 
himself entitled to a half, he was not only just to the father, 
but generous toward his brother. The more carefully we 
analyze the young man's character and study his possible 
motives, the more clearly we see how it may furnish a parallel 
for every defense which sin can make for itself. What we call 
becoming a Christian is not the origin of obligation. To him 
that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin, no 
matter what he professes. The demand "Give me the portion 
of goods that falleth to me," while apparently a just one, is 
fundamentally wrong, for the restless son is still a son, and 
subject to his father. 

The story of the young man's downward career is quickly 
told. We are mercifully spared its details, but the harsh words 



UNTIL HE FIND IT 



3 2 3 



of the elder son supplement the narrative from the lips of the 
Lord. The departure, the far country, the waste, the riotous 
living — in quick succession these scenes come before us. He 
was received, no doubt, as a jolly good fellow while his money 
lasted, but he could have placed all his friends in his pocket- 




THE LOST SHEEP — ( CARTOON BY FRANK BEARD ) 



book after it became empty. The friendships formed in 
iniquity are selfish and unsatisfying. The prodigal was soon 
in want and alone and in a land far from his home. And then 
came the famine. It always comes. Man cannot live on bread 
alone. The soul hungers for the food of the Father's house, 
and starves without it. 



324 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

No phrase could to a Jew describe the terrible depth of 
his fall so fitly as that the citizen to whom he joined himself, 
sent him, hungry and unpaid, to feed swine. Behold this child 
of Abraham, at the sty, coveting the contents of the trough! 
Yet the picture is not overdrawn. Durer, the quaint old Ger- 
man artist, drew the picture of the prodigal among the swine — 
and the face of the prodigal was the artist's own portrait. It 
was a confession such as many a man might make if equally 
honest. How many a young man has been brought to the gut- 
ter and to a condition that is positively swinish, beastly, 
through a course of dissipation short and swift as the prod- 
igal's! 

Repentance is not sorrow for sin. Sin and sorrow are very 
intimately related. To be sorry for sin is often a long way 
from repentance. "A godly sorrow worketh repentance, but 
the sorrow of the world worketh death." Sorrow for sin may 
be of either kind. That a man is sorry for his sin is hopeful, 
but it is not enough. Wishing one were back in the father's 
house does not change the trough to a laden table. The son 
may contrast his condition with that of his father's servants, 
and yet never again become a son. Repentance embraces 
three stages — a perception of the guilt of sin, a feeling of 
remorse, and a turning to God. The test of the first two is 
the third. Repentance is a turning again to God, and is the 
only condition on which the sinner can be recognized again 
as a son. 

The prodigal's repentance was genuine, but his theology 
was defective. He reasoned it all out; how he had forfeited all 
his rights in the household, how he could never be a son after 
having repudiated the relation, how even his father could do 
no more for him in the way of inheritance, but how it might 
be possible to become a servant. His system of theology was 
fully as Biblical as some that have been taught in our schools, 
and, like them, it answered very well while it lasted. Even 
defective systems have their mission and their day. The son 
might have had less courage to come back had he anticipated 
the extent of the father's ability to receive him. The teachings 



UNTIL HE FIND IT 



3 2 5 



of other clays, in which men came to God with less easy-going 
assurance that God could easily overlook sin, was not without 
its advantages. Our view of the case is more nearly correct, 
no doubt, but one could sometimes wish that men would come 
to God more as the prodigal came back and less as he came 
the first time to his father, expecting God's bounty as a right 
assured. 




THE PRODIGAL'S REPENTANCE— (DURER, 1504) 

So the son trudges back, all the long, weary way, rehearsing 
as he goes his little speech to be made to his father. He will 
not go to the front door and ring; he will go, as he remembers 
that in his youth the tramps came, to the kitchen door. He 
will not be refused a crust there, he well knows. He will ask 
to see his father, who will come out to learn what a tramp can 
want with him. He will anticipate his father's stern rebuke and 



326 ' JESUS OF NAZARETH 

forestall his possible rejection. It is not as a son, but as a 
servant, that he wishes to return. He will hasten to tell his 
father so. 

How different from his anticipation was his reception! With 
increasing years and growing infirmities, the father daily sits 
where he can look down the road where years ago, beyond the 
hill, he lost sight of his wayward boy. The father has never 
ceased to look for him, though all others speak his name only 
with reproach. There can have been no mother in that home. 
All fatherly, all motherly love are in the bosom of our Heavenly 
Father. 

The son draws nearer to his home. He is footsore and 
weary and ragged and travel-stained. No one, he reflects bit- 
terly, will know him. He passes houses where he once played: 
he sees old companions in their doors and in their fields; he 
knows them and shrinks to the other side of the road as he 
passes, but his precaution is needless — to them he is but a 
tramp. The home is in sight; his heart almost fails him; he 
is half tempted now to turn back. What if his father should 
be unforgiving? What, ah! what if he should be dead — dead, 
perhaps by reason of a broken heart? He has hardly strength 
to go farther. He cannot go on, yet he must. Again he calls 
to his mind the words he means to speak, and plods onward, 
the words choking him as he speaks them. But who is that 
that sits in the door? It cannot be, and yet it must be — so 
much older, so much feebler, yet the same form — it is, it is his 
father. He is rising from his seat; he leans upon his staff; 
he is not so erect or strong as he once was. He is looking 
this way. He shades his eyes and looks again. A moment 
of hesitation, and the strength of years comes to the father 
with that glad recognition! The son was expecting to have 
to introduce himself, "But when he was yet a great way off. 
his father saw him," and knew him. 

The son's little address was only half delivered. The father 
had no time to hear it. It was enough that the son had 
returned. The suffering of years was at an end, ana he who 
came with half-hearted hopes of becoming a servant, found 
himself through the abounding love of the father, a son again. 



UNTIL HE FIND IT 



327 



Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us, that we who have been prodigals should be called again 
the sons of God! Having forsaken God, he has never forsaken 
us, and through his unbroken paternity we receive the spirit 
of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit bearing 




THE GOOD SHEPHERD — (DOBSON) 

witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God. Beloved, 
even now, after our sin, and before our complete sanetifica- 
tion, are we the sons of God. It is no mere hard and fast law, 
no quid pro quo, no bargain of so much morality for so much 
salvation, by virtue of which we come back to our Father's 



328 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



house. We are free from the law. We are not servants but 
sons. We sometimes wish that the conditions of salvation 
were more definite, that we might tell men just what good 
thing they must do to be saved. God has left them as they are 
with intent. We have not received the spirit of bondage again 
to fear, but the Spirit whereby we cry Father, and God says, 
"This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and 
is found." 

Here our expositions commonly stop. But it was for the 
elder son that Jesus spoke the parable. These Pharisees, com- 
placent in their years of legal service and expecting a gener- 
ous reward from heaven, these were the elder sons, unbrotherly 
and unfilial! How the parable must have rebuked them! But 
to the publicans and to poor prodigals since, it has been a 
never-failing inspiration and blessing. 




THE GOOD SHEPHERD OF THE FOUR SEASONS 
(FROM THE CATACOMB OF SAINT CALIXTUS) 



CHAPTER XXXI 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD 

The Feast of the Dedication was not a Biblical feast. It was 
established by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 B. C, when Jerusalem 
was recaptured from Antiochus Epiphanes, and the temple 
which he had desecrated was purified and rededicated. It was 
a festival of light, being often called "The feast of lights," and 
was celebrated with joy. John alone tells us of Jesus' attend- 
ance, and that the place of his teaching was Solomon's porch. 
This porch was the long covered corridor running the 
length of the temple area on the side overlooking the Kedron 
valley and the Mount of Olives. There, a little sheltered from 
the wind, but approachable by a great throng, Jesus met the 
people, who demanded, "How long dost thou hold us in sus- 
pense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly." Jesus answered 
them, "I told you, and ye believe not: the works that I do in 
my Father's name, these bear witness of me. But ye believe 
not, because ye are not of my sheep" (John 10: 24-27). 

Again, as at the autumn feast, the Jews took up stones to 
stone him, but Jesus did not at once seek to escape as before. 
Instead, he faced them and demanded a reason for their act 
of violence. He said: "Many good works have I shewed you 
from the Father; for which of these works do ye stone me?" 
They answered they were about to stone him for making him- 
self equal with God. Jesus met them with a quotation from 
one of the Psalms, "I said, ye are gods" (Ps. 82: 6). The 
Psalmist was talking about men, and not very good men at 
that; yet he called them gods, because, in their official state 
they represented a measure of divine authority. Jesus had not 
said, "I am God." He had claimed less than possibly might 
have been deduced from the Old Testament quotation as to 

3 2 9 



330 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

these men who were born to die. Therefore, he said, "If 
he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and 
the scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him, whom the 
Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; 
because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works 
of my Father, believe me not. But if I do them, though ye 
believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know and 
understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father" (John 

io:35-38)- 

The people were argued down, but unconvinced, and they 

resorted to stones. A stone is a great convenience when logic 

fails. So Jesus escaped again as best he could, and returned 

to Persea. 

While on this winter visit to Jerusalem Jesus appears to 
have been entertained by Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and 
this may have been the time that Martha worried over the 
housework. 

We are not sure that we know an}^ other facts relating to 
this visit of Christ to Jerusalem. One discourse, that on the 
Good Shepherd and one incident, the healing on the Sabbath 
day of the man born blind, stand in John's account after the 
Feast of Tabernacles and before the Feast of the Dedication. 
They evidently occurred at Jerusalem at one of these two 
feasts. The discourse on the Good Shepherd appears the nat- 
ural introduction to the discourse of Jesus delivered in Solo- 
mon's porch, and the controversy about the Sabbath seems 
more naturally to have occurred at the later feast. At all 
events, we consider them briefly here. 

The story of the man born blind is told in John 9: 1-11. 
"And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And 
his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, 
or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, 
Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works 
of God should be made manifest in him. We must work the 
works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh. 
when no man can work. When I am in the world, I am the 
light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD 



331 



ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes 
with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of 
Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went away 
therefore, and washed, and came seeing. The neighbors there- 
fore, and they which saw him aforetime, that he was a beggar, 
said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Others said, It is he: 
others said, No, but he is like him. He said, I am he. They 




THE POOL OF SILOAM 



said therefore unto him, How then were thine eyes opened? He 
answered, The man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed 
mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to Siloam, and wash: so I 
went away and washed, and I received sight." 

The pool of Siloam is still in existence. It is fifty-two feet 
long and eighteen wide. The water in it is dirty now, but it 
was probably not so in Christ's day. Josephus describes it as 



2,7,2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

sweet and abundant. The water flows into it from the "Foun- 
tain of the Virgin" as it is called, the only spring in Jerusalem, 
through a canal five hundred and eighty-six yards long. In 
1880, a small boy, bathing in the pool, discovered an inscrip- 
tion which proved to be the oldest known specimen of Hebrew, 
dating from about 700 B. C. It is now in the national museum 
in Constantinople, where I saw it in 1902. It relates that the 
channel was begun from both ends, and that the workmen, as 
they neared each other, heard the sound of each other's tools, 
and found themselves only half a cubit out of line at the meet- 
ing point. The channel has since been examined, and this 
was found to be true. 




THE SILOAM INSCRIPTION 



To this pool the man went and washed, and came seeing. A 
great controversy arose, because the work of healing had been 
done on the Sabbath. 

We are impressed again with the pains which Jesus took to 
disregard current ideas of the proper method of Sabbath 
observance. It was not necessary to heal the blind man on 
that particular clay. Jesus would be in Jerusalem the next day 
and so would the man. The man was not expecting to be 
healed, and had been so long blind that a day of blindness more 
or less was inconsiderable to him. Had Jesus counted it worth 
while to carry Paul's principle of not eating meat because of 
the weak brother's prejudice to such a length as might easily 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD 



333 



be imagined, he would have charged the man to meet him — 
and the man would have gone far to meet him — on the 
morrow. 

Moreover, Jesus made unusual and unnecessary appearance 
of labor in this very cure. It was not his custom on week days 
to make clay and anoint the eyes of blind men, or to send 
them far to wash. The labor on his own part and on the part, 
of the man was made especially prominent in this Sabbath 
cure. 




LEADING FORTH THE SHEEP 



Christ's works of mercy had ever respect to something more 
than institutional religion. Here was a real ministration to 
real human need. There were many blind men in Israel, and 
more in the world, whom he did not meet and did not heal. 
But Jesus never found in the physical impossibility of minister- 
ing to all the needy, an excuse for passing the individual within 
reach. It was genuine pity, a pity born of divine sorrow and 
sympathy, a pity resident in a heart that could know by experi- 
ence the keenness of human sorrow and the intensity of human 
pain, that manifested itself in Christ's works of healing. He 



334 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

alwavs healed the man at hand. There were blind men in 
plenty, and had been for unnumbered generations, who knew 
not that earth rejoiced at the footstep upon it of one who 
opened the eyes of men born blind. There are blind men now, 
living in lands hopelessly beyond the reach of our dispensaries 
and hospitals, whom modern skill might cure. But the man 
who has the love of Christ will never fail to do the thing he 
may do, because he cannot do all. Just here is our temptation. 
We know so well the world's need. The morning paper lays 
at our doors the sufferers from a railroad wreck here, a tor- 
nado there, a flood yonder, an epidemic somewhere else, a 
strike in a factory a thousand miles away, a shut-down in a 
coal mine still farther, and farthest of all, perhaps, a sweat- 
shop within rifle shot of our own homes. And we cannot help 
all. We run a gauntlet of appeals for objects which we have 
not time to investigate. "Give to every one that asketh of 
thee," said the Lord. "Give to no one," says the official in 
charge, "send them to the associated charities, and draw your 
annual check in favor of its treasury." Yes; and yet, let no 
Christian fail to have some little share in personal relief of suf- 
fering. It is better to be imposed upon sometimes than to 
harden one's heart all the time. It is better that we shall not 
fail to do the good we may, because we cannot do it all. 

Light and darkness, sight and blindness, are used so fre- 
quently and so helpfully as analogies of righteousness and sin, 
that we always think, and rightly, of those other cases of heal- 
ing which Jesus performed and still performs, in giving sight 
to those who are blinded by sin. For such analogies we have 
the best of authority in Christ's own words, "I am the light 
of the world." 

The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin. 

The light of the world is Jesus; 
Like sunshine at noonday his glory shone in. 

The light of the world is Jesus. 

However limited was, and still must be, the work of healing 
physical ills, no soul turns to Jesus a spiritual vision clouded 
by sin, with a prayer for healing and spiritual sight, but 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD 



335 



becomes able to testify with this man born blind, "One thing 
I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." This is the 
testimony which is bringing the world to Christ. The healed 
man may or may not be a logician; he may or may not be able 
to argue with the priests; but one thing the convert is able 
to testify, and his testimony, supported by a holy life, the 
world is ready to believe; and it can never wholly convince 




THE SHEPHERD OF JERUSALEM 

itself that the Saviour is not from Heaven who brings light 
to darkened souls. 

The man born blind was cast out of the temple for his faith 
in Jesus, but Jesus escaped the wrath of the priests. To him 
Jesus declared his divine Sonship, and the man's spiritual eyes 
were opened to receive him as the Christ. 

Jesus appears to have followed the miracle with the discourse 
on the Good Shepherd. This name, which he gave to himself. 



336 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

was so beautiful in its symbolism and so in harmony with the 
words of the prophets and with one of Christ's own most 
precious parables, that it has become one of the dearest of all 
the names by which the Saviour is known to the hearts of his 
followers. In riding through Palestine I repeatedly saw shep- 
herds whose care of their flocks reminded me of the descrip- 
tions. The shepherd goes before his flock and the sheep fol- 
low; the shepherd calls the sheep, and they respond to no 
other voice. All this we saw as we journeyed through Galilee 
and Samaria and Judaea. Repeatedly I saw shepherds carrying 
lambs in their arms, and once I saw one carrying two little 
kids in his bosom. One Sunday we held a memorable service 
in Jerusalem, on Calvary, and as we finished a shepherd came 
over the hill, leading his sheep. The sheep were somewhat 
disconcerted by the tourists, and he had difficulty in keeping 
them together, but he did it. I caught a very imperfect pho- 
tograph of him. I could wish the picture itself much better, 
but imperfect as it is I count it worth reproducing, as the 
picture of a modern Jerusalem shepherd leading his flock over 
the place where the Good Shepherd laid down his life for the 
sheep. 

Jesus announced to those bigoted Jews that he had other 
sheep, not of that fold, and that these were to be brought into 
the flock of the one Shepherd. It was strange doctrine to 
them, but is the essence of the gospel to us. 

One of the greatest and most characteristic contrasts be- 
tween Judaism and Christianity, and one of the hardest for the 
apostles who had been Jews to adjust themselves to, was found 
in this element of inclusiveness in the new religion. Here was 
the glory of the apostle Paul, who would not test his apos- 
tolic mission nor the rights of his converts by any of the con- 
ventions of Judaism. Himself a Jew, he was willing to become 
as without the law, that he might save them without law. It 
was precisely over this point that the life and death struggle 
occurred between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. 

As God had other sheep than the Jews, so he now has other 
sheep than those who profess to be his. Some of them are 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD 



337 



not known as his by any save the Shepherd himself. It is hard 
to tell by what mark they could be known as his. For what 
is so unclean as a soiled sheep? And what so helpless as a lost 
sheep? We need not forget that the sinner is still a child of 
God, but what is so unfilial as a disobedient child? Sin is 
hideous, deliberate, loathsome. It is not simply brutal; it is 
often worse, because intelligence which should have prevented 
it, adds to it a refinement of shamefulness which mocks the 
word brutality. But even the sheep that is most drabbled and 
fouled by sin, God is seeking, that there may be one flock and 
one Shepherd. 

There is no principle of unity that can unite, save that which 
holds men to a common center. The planets are not all alike. 
They have different orbits, different lengths of year, different 
lengths of day and kinds of day, and varieties of atmosphere 
and of season and of life. But they form together a harmonious 
unit because they are held to a common sun. So the way in 
which we are to have one flock, is in the possession of one 
Shepherd. 




THE GOOD SHEPHERD — (mOLITOR) 



CHAPTER XXXII 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 

Sacred are the memories that cluster around the little town 
of Bethany. He who stands on the Mount of Olives and looks 
about him locates the village at once, situated on its shoulder, 
and around the summit from Jerusalem. Here, he who had 
not where to lay his head, had always a warm welcome in the 
home of his friends. 

The first recorded visit of Jesus to Bethany appears to have 
been at the time of Jesus' winter visit to Jerusalem at the 
Feast of the Dedication, December 20-27, A. D. 29 (Luke 
10: 38-42), but the narrative seems to imply a longer and more 
intimate acquaintance. Jesus returned a month later at the 
call, "Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick," and brought joy to 
the household that loved him (John 11: 1-46). Two months 
later, arriving in Bethany on the day before the Sabbath, 
he was anointed by Mary (John 12:2-11). From Bethany he 
entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and returned at night to 
the home of his friends. Monday and Tuesday he did the 
same. Wednesday he spent in retirement, apparently in 
Bethany. Thursday he left the village that was dear to him 
to celebrate the passover in the city with his disciples. He 
did not return until after his resurrection, when, "He led them 
out as far as Bethany; and he lifted up his hands and blessed 
them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was 
parted from them, and carried up into heaven" (Luke 24: 

5o> 5i). 

All these memories endear Bethany to the pilgrim of to-day. 

Twice I visited Bethany. It is full of a crowd of insistent 
beggars, and is far more picturesque when seen from without. 
But there is a wonderful fascination about the place, notwith- 

338 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 



339 



standing. Life there is as primitive as in the time of Jesus. I 
found a woman spinning with a distaff as simple as Mary or 
Martha ever used. I give her picture as she sat by the wall, 
twirling her stick with a round small balance wheel at the top, 
and winding her coarse yarn on the spindle below. I bought 
the simple contrivance, and see it before me as I write, and it 
brings back the life of that home that Jesus enjoyed so well. 
The Bethany home was not a home of poverty. The family 
could entertain, could give a feast, owned a garden, and had 
three hundred days' wages ready to invest in a rich gift to 




MODERN BETHANY 

Jesus. Neither was it a home of ostentatious wealth. It was 
a home cared for by the sisters themselves, but one where 
hospitality was no burden, and love made large things pos- 
sible. 

To this home Jesus was recalled from Persea by the message 
that Lazarus was sick. The family knew where to find him; 
they were among his confidants. Strangely, Jesus did not go 
at once, but announced that the sickness was not unto death. 
But Lazarus died, and had been buried four days when Jesus 
arrived. 



340 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



It was Martha who met him on the road, outside the vil- 
lage. "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not 
died," said she. This was the first word of Mary, too. The sis- 
ters had said it over and over to each other these last four 
days. But Martha added that she knew that even now what- 
ever he asked of God, God would do. She was not expecting 
Lazarus to rise; she only knew that in some way the coming 




A MODERN MARTHA OF BETHANY SPINNING 



of Jesus was to be a source of comfort. Jesus said: "Thy 
brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that 
he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus 
said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that 
believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whoso- 
ever liveth and believeth on me shall never die (John 1 1 : 
23-26). 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 



341 



Martha did not know what to answer. She did not fully 
understand him; neither do we. She thought Mary might 
know what to say. She did not wait for Jesus to ask for Mary 
but hastened to call her, saying, "The Master is come, and 
calleth for thee." But before she went she put herself on rec- 




THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 
(SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO, I485-I547) 



ord as to faith in Christ. "She saith unto him. Yea, Lord: I 
have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even 
he that cometh into the world" (John n: 27). 

She did not directly answer Christ's question as to the resur- 
rection, but expressed her faith in him. It was not faith in 



342 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



a fact, but faith in Jesus himself. It was quite as good faith 
as inspired Peter's great confession, and it forever redeems 
domestic Martha from the charge of being unspiritual. 

They show a tomb in Bethany which they call the tomb of 
Lazarus. It may or may not be authentic. One climbs down 




THE RAISING OF LAZARUS — ( RUBENS, I577-1640) 



dark stairs by candle-light and stands in the vault below with 
a sense of awe and wonder. In some such tomb Lazarus lay, 
perhaps in this very one. Here Death heard and obeyed the 
voice of Jesus, and gave back its prey. One climbs back to 
the light with a wholly different sensation than that with 
which he descended into the cave. The light of day is in his 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 



343 



face, and the words of Jesus are in his ears, "I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life." 

The resurrection of Lazarus became a new incentive to hos- 
tility on the part of the Jews. They determined to put both 
Jesus and Lazarus to death. But the miracle furnished a new 
witness for Jesus. When the feast was served in the home of 
Martha and Mary, the Jews came not only to see Jesus, but 





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jP^k. 5 .IS. /^ 




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— 



THE TOMB OF LAZARUS 



Lazarus. The living- Lazarus seated by the side of Jesus 
became a mighty witness of his power. From the beginning" 
to the end of the gospel narrative, the words which we so 
gladly would hear from the lips of one with his experience 
remain unspoken, nor is there any specific act of Lazarus 
which we can count as a direct testimony for Jesus. It is the 
silent witness of his presence, the presence of one who has 



344 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

been raised from the dead at the voice of Jesus. It was this 
that brought the Jews to see him; it was he who made the 
power of Christ incontestable. On that occasion when the 
Jews were stopping at nothing which might promote their 
ends, it was not the divine power of Christ directly exerted for 
his own salvation, that prevented their success. It was rather 
the testimony of two men, one dead and the other living; the 
one was John the Baptist, whose name Christ invoked in such 
a way that the Jewish leaders never rallied from the dilemma 
in which he placed them, and the other was Lazarus. He was 
one of the living evidences of Christianity; he was an indisput- 
able proof of the power of Christ ; he was an incontestable argu- 
ment in favor of the divinity of Jesus. 

There are some kinds of Christian testimony which depend 
on ability, scholarship and external opportunity. There is one 
which is relatively independent of these things; so far as we 
know Lazarus spoke no word which confuted the adversaries 
of Christ. He did not become a logician; we have no dog- 
matic treatise of his upon Christian evidences or systematic 
theology. That which proved his potent witness was the sim- 
ple truth that Jesus had raised him from the dead. The incon- 
testable evidence that a man is walking with Christ in newness 
of life, makes him a witness of the same sort to prove and 
illustrate and amplify the gospel. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 

After the raising of Larazus, Jesus retired to a village called 
Ephraim, "in the country near the wilderness" (John 11:54). 
This town is not mentioned in Scripture, but is believed by 
Robinson and others to be identical with the Ophrah of I. 
Sam. 13: 17 and Josh. 18: 23, and with the modern et-Taiybeh 
(Robinson 1 : 447). 

The route of the last journey to Jerusalem led him from 
Ephraim through the borders of Samaria and Galilee and 
again through Persea. Journeying onward he was asked by 
the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come. It was 
a question that seemed timely. Jesus had been preaching about 
the kingdom of heaven for a long time. When was it to come? 
Jesus answered, "The kingdom of God cometh not with obser- 
vation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, there! for lo, the 
kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17: 20-21). 

It was a definite reply to the carnal hopes of the Jews. The 
kingdom was not of this world. Its glories were spiritual, and 
through spiritual ends it was to transform the world. The 
very face of nature has been changed by man. Its fertile fields, 
its noble landscapes, its cultivated plants and grains and trees, 
have been wrought of God through man. God's kingdom is 
over all this, and all is included in the redemption of Christ. 
There is a cosmic redemption. There is a political redemp- 
tion. But it is first of all a redemption personal and social, 
widening its sphere in concentric circles like the ripples that 
increase from the dropping of a stone till they reach the shores 
of the lake on every side. Jesus was doing his best to let men 
understand, what still many fail to realize, that the kingdom 
is a kingdom of the soul. Its endeavor is to crown Christ king 

345 



346 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

in society and literature, in art and business and politics, and 
in the relations of the nations. 

Jesus was asked all kinds of questions — and among the rest, 
one as to the right of a man to divorce his wife. Jesus did 
not undertake to settle, as has often been assumed, the whole 
problem of divorce. But he answered the inquiry concerning 
that single phase of the question, the right of a man to put away 
his wife for a minor cause. He declared that he who does so 
is an adulterer. Thus plainly Jesus established purity of life 
and the stability of the home as essential qualities of the king- 
dom of God. 

Then ensued one of the tenderest and most beautiful scents 
in the Gospels, to which reference has been made in the chap- 
ter on Jesus and the children — that of the blessing of the chil- 
dren. The disciples forbade the fond mothers, but Jesus 
encouraged them to come to him. He did more than bless the 
children; he declared the childlike spirit to be the fundamental 
condition of entrance to the kingdom (Luke 18: 16, 17). 

Just after this incident a rich young ruler, moral, upright, 
earnest, came seeking what he had not yet found in his spirit- 
ual life. Jesus loved him, for he had kept the moral law from 
his youth, and now stood before him, clean, ardent, sincere. 
But he was purse-proud and selfish, nevertheless; and Jesus 
said to him, "One thing thou lackest; go, sell whatsoever thou 
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven; and come, follow me. But his countenance fell at the 
saying, and he went away sorrowful; for he was one that had 
great possessions" (Mark 10; 21, 22). 

Jesus sadly saw him go away, and turning to his disciples 
said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
kingdom of God!" 

They were surprised; for many of the seemingly and some 
of the truly good men were rich. "Who can be saved?" asked 
the apostles, for those who were not rich were trying hard to 
be so. Jesus answered that God could make this hard thing 
possible; that a man living in the world where money is needed 
and the struggle for it is full of temptations, might still so 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 347 

conquer covetousness as to inherit the kingdom of God. 
This young man was good, in a way. The mere law of pro- 
hibition had done much for him. His profession, "All these 
have I kept," was not necessarily a boast; it may have been 
true, but he lacked love and sacrifice. A man may do all and 
have not love and profit nothing. Not that this man had abso- 
lutely no love — he had not enough or of the right kind. To be 
poor for Christ's sake and to give till the giving hurt, this was 
what he could not do. The man who will attain eternal life 
must be he who will for that willingly give all else. The man 
whose treasure was his ruin was one whom Jesus loved. 

Giving to the poor is still a test of discipleship, yet I am 
confident that Christ does not want every man to sell all and 
give to the poor. Giving to the poor to-day is often to make 
poverty self-perpetuating. Shall every prosperous man retire 
from business and give away his capital? Shall the capital of 
the world, the industry, the ability to establish and endow 
industrial and philanthropic enterprises pass wholly into the 
hands of the godless? Christ did not mean this. Rather he 
would have us give the poor a chance to be a man; give where 
it will lift the poor above poverty. 

It was this incident that gave rise to the institution of 
monasticism; at least, this was the lesson that determined St 
Anthony, the father of asceticism in the Church, to his course. 
It seems to us plain enough that this was not Christ's mean- 
ing. Asceticism has been weighed in the balance and found 
wanting. By its fruits we know if. God is rich and wishes 
us to be so. It would not be to the credit of Christianity that 
its followers live in poorer homes, have less to wear and eat 
than votaries of other religions. We believe in Christianitv 
because its followers are better provided for than those of 
other faiths. By its fruits we know it. It has a cash value. 
But this is not its chief value. That giving is the best which 
most truly helps men onward in manhood; such giving blesses 
not only him who receives, but doubly so him who gives. 

This young man believed eternal life worth getting, and 
worth all it cost, yet deliberately gave it up, and so the Mas- 
ter's love for a young man of promise ended in sorrow for his 



348 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

incapacity for self-sacrifice. Dante, in his vision of the future, 
saw this young man who made "the great refusal" vainly 
searching eternity for his lost opportunity. 

Then Peter said something that had been on his mind for 
a long time. "Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee." 
A question was implied, "What is to be our recompense?'' It 
was a fair question, and one long delayed. The fidelity of the 
disciples deserved a reward, and they needed just now its 
incentive. Jesus answered, "Verily I say unto you, There is 
no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, 
or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gos- 
pel's sake, but he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this time, 
houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, 
and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal 
life." 

But Jesus desired to prevent any mistakes growing out of 
his promise that the disciples were to receive "manifold more." 
He proceeded at once to tell them where they were going and 
what it involved. "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the 
Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes; 
and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him 
unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify; and 
the third day he shall be raised up." 

The warning about his crucifixion did not prevent the dis- 
ciples from cherishing renewed ambitions. "The mother of 
Zebedee's children," came to Jesus with her two sons James 
and John, asking that they might have places on his right hand 
and on his left in his kingdom. The name of Zebedee's wife 
was Salome. Many scholars believe her to have been a sister 
of Mary, the mother of Jesus (Matt. 27; 56; Mark 15; 40). 

We wonder where Zebedee was all this time. He had been 
present when his sons left their nets to follow Jesus. Was he 
too old or too busy to be a follower of Jesus? He was a prom- 
inent man in the fishing business, and had partners and ser- 
vants — was probably the head of the syndicate; perhaps he 
was too busy to give personal attention to religion, but was 
glad to have his wife follow Jesus, and willing that his sons 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 



349 



should be disciples. He might have done far worse. But alas 
for Zebedee if he supposes that the mother of his children is 
the only one responsible for their finding places in the king- 
dom! 

We are more than ready to forgive this request of an ambi- 
tious mother for her sons. It was an ambition for others, and 
for those others who represented to a Hebrew mother the 
acme of hope. It was the outgrowth of faith in Christ, a crude, 
materialistic faith, but one that carried with it her heart's 
devotion, so that she was among the last at his cross and most 
constant in ministration in life and death. She had earned 
some rights, and she did not seek them for herself. 

Yet it was an ambition which needed a chastening, and was 
soon to receive it. Jesus had told his disciples plainly that he 
was the Christ. That they understood, or thought they did. 
He had told them twice, and now told them a third time and 
more plainly, that he was to go to Jerusalem and suffer. That 
they did not understand, and could not in the ligdit of the 
other revelation. For the Messiah to go to his own was not 
to be crucified, that they thought plain, but to enter his king- 
dom. And they longed to be counted great in that kingdom. 
There is a glory, at least Christ does not deny that there is, 
and he seems to encourage the hope that there is, consisting 
in especial nearness to him in his kingdom, and he says that 
these positions are not in his gift. They are for those for 
whom they are prepared. Who are these? 

The positions at his right and his left hand a few days later, 
were occupied by two malefactors, the one penitent, the other 
impious. And that was when the Son of man was coming 
into his kingdom! "Lord, remember me when thou comest 
into thy kingdom!" In that hour of awful agony, there was a 
man who could count even the pain of crucifixion worth while 
if it brought him to the right hand of Christ. Which of the 
disciples could have believed it? In the hour of the consum- 
mation of the Lord's work — the hour which, spite its eternal 
horror, was the hour of his coronation — those on his right hand 
and his left were neither James nor John nor Peter nor 



350 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Thomas, but two criminals, suffering like himself, for alleged 
revolt against the government of Rome. 

The disciples were indignant at James and John. But Jesus 
speaks kindly to them all of the spirit of his kingdom. Not 
the glory of ambition, but the glory of sacrifice, is that for 
which he is preparing himself and them. 

Two great truths concerning his ministry Jesus reserved 
till its very close before revealing their full import to his dis- 
ciples. The first was that he was to be offered a sacrifice for 
sins. He had vaguely hinted it before, but now he told it fully. 
The second was that they were to share that sacrifice. Twice 
he conjoined these two great truths; once when Peter rebuked 
him for his own impending doom as he had foretold it, and 
here again when the disciples are wondering who shall be 
greatest in his kingdom; and two of them through their 
mother are asking for the chief place. Jesus teaches them the 
lesson of service. Whoever will be great, shall minister; he 
who will be greatest, shall serve. The words might bear even 
a stronger translation, as "Whoever will be great let him 
serve, and whoever will be greatest let him become a slave." 

All this was very startling to the disciples, but it was less 
so than what followed, "Even as the Son of man came," and 
they were beginning to know why he had come. As he came 
to serve they were to serve. As he was to give his life for a 
ransom, they were to give their lives to the same end. The 
emphatic words are "even as." Christ's own service is the 
only measure of ours. 

There were four progressive lessons on the cross which the 
Lord gave his disciples. The first was at Caesarea Philippi 
(Matt. 16: 13 et seq.) where Peter confessed him. "From that 
time began Jesus to show his disciples how he must go to Jeru- 
salem, and suffer." This is definitely recorded as the beginning 
of Christ's teaching on this subject, and the time appears to 
have been less than six months before his crucifixion. The 
second was this incident when Salome came and asked for her 
sons an advantage over the other disciples. Christ used the 
indignation of the disciples resulting from this incident for the 



THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 



351 



second lesson on the cross. The third lesson was the anointing 
at Bethany, where it was declared that Mary had come to do 
this against his burial. The fourth was the Lord's Supper. 

In three of these, certainly, the two lessons are joined. 
When the Lord tells Peter that he is to be crucified, he adds, 
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take 
up his cross and follow me." When he tells them that his life 
is to be given as a ransom, he tells them that their lives are 
to be "even as" his. When Mary anoints his feet, he tells 
them that this outpouring of human love shall be told of "as 
memorial of her" wherever the Gospel of his cross is preached. 
And in the last supper he lays upon his disciples the obliga- 
tion of an ordinance wherein they shall perpetually remind 
themselves of their fellowship with one another in the bond 
of their communion in his death. So the doctrine of the cross 
includes the sacrifice and glory of the disciples with their Lord. 

Paul understood the spirit of these teachings. He was 
crucified with Christ; he lived, yet not he but Christ. He was 
a partaker in Christ's sufferings, and expected to be a partaker 
in his glory. Likewise the other apostles understood, in part, 
at least, the meaning of these words of Jesus. These teachings 
set forth the essential truth that Christ's work and ours are 
not to be divorced. Nor is his death to be rudely severed 
from his life. His death fitly culminated his life of ministry. 
The two belong together. 

The doctrine of the kingdom as Jesus preached it in his last 
journey to Jerusalem, was the glory and the fellowship of 
sacrifice "even as" the Son of man, who came not to be min- 
istered to but to minister, and to give his life, while living and 
while dying, as he still is giving it, in the fullness of his redemp- 
tive work, for the redemption of many. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 



BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 

Modern Jericho is a squalid town. The men have a bad 
reputation as robbers; the virtue of the women is more than 
questioned, and the children are as vicious a set of little beg- 
gars as one may find between Jordan and the Mediterranean. 
It is situated in a region of great fertility, which presents a 
most pleasing contrast to the bleak and desolate wilderness of 
Judaea. Situated far below the level of the sea, in a region of 
infrequent rains, it is hot and dusty; but its springs are a 
source of life and verdure, and the swift-flowing Jordan is 
fringed with a tangle of trees, in whose solitudes the hyenas 
and jackals hide and howl. In the time of Christ, Jericho was 
a populous city. Herod had a palace there, and it was a place 
of political importance. At the time of the visit of Jesus it 
was doubtless thronged with pilgrims on the way to Jerusa- 
lem. This was in the last days of March, A. D. 30. He healed 
blind Bartimasus (Matt. 20: 29-34), visited Zacchseus (Luke 
19: 9-10), and delivered the parable of the pounds (Luke 19: 
11-28). He went on to Jerusalem, leaving Jericho apparently 
on Friday, March 31, and arriving at Bethany that night. The 
incidents which claim our attention are those relating to the 
blind men and the publican. 

As Jesus entered Jericho two blind men sat begging. Pales- 
tine is full of people who are blind or nearly so. The visitor is 
distressed by the number of people with diseases of the eyes. 
Commentators, noticing that Matthew speaks of two men and 
Mark and Luke of only one, and that Mark and Luke speak 
of the healing as occurring when Jesus entered Jericho, and 
Matthew as he was leaving, are at pains to decide whether 
there were two or only one. For my own part, I have no 

352 



BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 



353 



doubt there were at least two; and if he healed Bartimaeus on 
entering, and did not find some others waiting for him as he 
left, things have greatly changed in Palestine. The maimed 
and halt and blind are all there now, and it fills one's heart 
with pity. 

It was a great opportunity for Bartimaeus. None such had 
ever come to him. It was his only opportunity, though he did 
not know it. With all his power he shouted, "J esus > thou son 
of David, have mercy on me!" The crowd ordered him to be 




MODERN JERICHO 



silent, but he shouted the more, till Jesus heard and healed 
him. 

As Jesus entered Jericho he discovered another man who 
needed him — a publican named Zaccliaeus. Everybody in 
Jericho knew Zaccliaeus, and could have described him with 
striking unanimity. He was little, he was rich, he was a pub- 
lican. That was the whole story so far as Jericho knew. 
Jesus alone knew that Zacchaeus had a capacity for justice and 
generosity and spirituality. 

Zacchaeus came to look on. That was his only interest in 
the matter. It was the only interest any one wanted him to 



354 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



assume. The public street was his, and no one could forbid 
the man a right to climb who was first at a tree in the high- 
way. It is better for a man to be curious than indifferent. 
There is a blessing to the inquiring mind. A part of the mis- 
sion of Jesus was to provoke curiosity. God is to be found 
by those who seek him. Great truths are not discovered 
loose on the surface of things; they are found, like gold, by 
industrious digging. 




A JERICHO FAMILY 



But mere curiosity will never take a man to heaven. A man 
may long wonder what Jesus is like, and never see him; or 
even go forth with the thoughtless throng, and be lost in the 
crowd. The vision of Jesus is worth the effort to climb. 

Men are not wholly what other men suppose them. Some 
of his own contemporaries knew Lincoln the joker; the world 
now knows Lincoln the sad-hearted, brpoding, compassionate 
soul. His own law partner says he was cold, that principles 
meant much to him and men little; the world knows that prin- 
ciples meant so much to him because he so deeply sympathized 



BARTIMAEUS AND ZACCHAEUS 



355 



with men. I sometimes think that no man is understood very 
well by any other man. And — I may sometimes change this 
optimistic delusion if so it is — I like to believe that most men 
are somewhat better than they are commonly thought to be. 
That is not wholly the popular impression. It is the office 
of much recent literature to show the hypocrite and scoundrel 
that exist in many apparently good men. Now and then 
shocking revelations of private life disclose what makes our 
hearts ache for men who appear good but are not so. Whether 
it be that another good man has gone wrong or that another 




SITE OF ANCIENT JERICHO 

bad man has been found out, the discovery is painful. But, 
all this to the contrary notwithstanding, I like to believe that 
the average man shows to the world a side which, while not 
his worst, is commonly not quite his best. He may be show- 
ing the side that he wants to show. He may derive satisfac- 
tion from the world's wrong estimate. But he does not always 
estimate himself aright, and the world seldom knows him as 
he is in his heart, and as God knows him. Jesus knew men as 
they were; and thank God, he knew them as they might 
become. 



356 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The visit of Jesus to Jericho reminds us that blessings come 
not only to the man who sits waiting, but to him who acts 
when the time comes; not only to the man who climbs a tree 
to see Jesus, but to him who makes haste to come down and 
receive him. 

There is such a thing as looking on in the religious life that 
has in it a peril and the need of a warning. Curiosity soon 
spends itself, and indifference follows. Meantime Jesus has 
passed on, the crowd has disappeared, and there is nothing but 
to climb down and go home and await the next sensation. 
Zacchams came down when Jesus requested, and gladly 
received his Lord. It had been worth the Master's while to 
come by way of Jericho, for he had given to Bartimseus the 
ability to discover the beauty of the world; and he gave to the 
world the ability to discover the good in such men as Zac- 
chseus. 




A MAN OF DISTINCTION IN JERICHO 



CHAPTER XXXV 



THE ALABASTER BOX 

Jesus probably spent Thursday night in the home of 
Zacchseus, healing blind Bartimseus either as he entered or left 
the city, and on Friday continued his journey, a six hours' 
up-hill walk to Jerusalem. There are few more pathetic pic- 
tures in the gospel history than this of Jesus going before his 
disciples toward Jerusalem. On his way from Jericho he 
repeated the parable of the pounds, and "went on before, going 
up to Jerusalem." The way was full of pilgrims from Perasa 
and the region about Jordan going up to the feast of the pass- 
over. The procession grew larger and longer, and ever at its 
head we see that sad, courageous figure, with weary but firm 
step ascending the ragged road toward Jerusalem to meet his 
crucifixion. 

For two months Jesus had hidden from the spite of the 
hierarchy in the little town of Ephraim. Again he approaches 
Bethany, where a few weeks before he raised Lazarus from 
the dead. Then it was nearing the end of January or the first 
of February, and winter reigned. Now as he approached 
Olivet from the Jordan valley, it was clothed in the verdure 
of spring. The groves about Bethany were all green, and the 
world never looked brighter to him than on that evening 
when the sun was setting on Jerusalem, and the sunset of his 
life was drawing near. 

There was a feast at Bethany that evening — such a feast 
as Jesus rarely attended. No cynical Pharisee prepared it, but 
love and gratitude made it rich and sweet. Martha served; 
Lazarus sat beside Jesus; and Mary came and broke her 
alabaster box of ointment on Jesus' head. 

The American Revision changes "pence" to "shillings," 
explaining in the margin that the coin was worth about seven- 

357 



358 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

teen cents. I would have preferred that they should have 
changed it to ''dollars," for the coin had a purchasing power 
in labor more than equal to that of a dollar now. The value 
of the alabaster box was that of a year's wages for a working 
man. It would be fair to reckon it as the equivalent of three 
hundred dollars, or perhaps five hundred dollars. Surely it 
was a large sum to expend on a momentary gratification. 
Why should Jesus permit the expenditure of so much money 
upon himself? He was a poor man like the rest of them. He 
was as unused to luxury as the others of the company. Judas 
was not the only one that complained. I wonder if there were 
any that did not! Three hundred dollars' worth of ointment 
gone in five minutes, and who was the better for it? You 
could have bought Peter's boat and all his fishing apparatus 
for three hundred dollars. They needed money now; their 
friends were few and their future was dark. The city which 
they were to enter on the morrow would have beggars at 
every corner, and, oh, such beggars, and so many of them! 
Why was the money wasted in ointment? 

But the poor have not suffered because of Mary's box of 
ointment. The gift she made then to the Master has over- 
flowed in fragrant blessings upon God's poor, and thousands 
of generous givers have heard the Master's word, "Inasmuch 
as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, .... ye did 
It unto me." 

She did what she could, and it was much. We can do no 
more than we are accustomed to think. It is love that makes 
us capable of the impossible. Mere conventional gratitude 
would have been content with conventional thanks. Love is 
original and inventive. Mere friendship, as the term is com- 
monly used, is always asking, "What can I give?" for its 
imagination is hampered by conventional ideals. This is whv 
Christmas gifts are so great a burden, not by reason of their 
cost, but because of their strain on the imagination. This is 
why wedding gifts abound in duplicates. Love can do unique 
things. It can fashion gifts that are original. Mary had this 
affection for Jesus, that was fruitful in invention and gifted 



THE ALABASTER BOX 



359 



with prophetic instinct. She did it for his burial, not knowing 
that he was about to die, but as divining by love's intuition 
that the gift would better be made now, while there was oppor- 
tunity, and while the friends were gathered who knew the 
reason for her gratitude. Some who saw this act thought it 
bold, and others thought it extravagant. Jesus appreciated it, 
for he knew better than any one else out of what pure devotion 
it sprang. His words were an illustration of that quality of 
appreciativeness which ever characterized his work. 




THE APOSTLES FOUNTAIN — ON JERICHO ROAD 



The world yearns for sympathy and appreciation. The artist 
gains courage to toil on in the attic in the hope that sometime 
the world will discover and applaud his genius. The man who 
struggles against odds for success, wants it not only for him- 
self, but to vindicate himself before the world. The world 
rushes to see the picture after some one with insight has 
discovered it. It hastens to give receptions and dinners to 
the man whose success some one else has disclosed. The 
world itself is not verv discerning, and its geniuses commonly 



360 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

become hungry before they are found. Now and then is given 
to some rare man the gift of discernment, and we applaud him 
as the discoverer of genius. 

Jesus said of Mary, "Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this 
gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which 
this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of 




mary with the alabaster box 
(carlo dolci, i 616-1686) 

her" (Matt. 26: 13). Why should Mary's story be told with 
the story of the gospel? Because it was a love which like 
Christ's did not measure the means which it employed to 
express itself. Over against the utilitarian fidelity of those 
who complained of the waste, we place her unstinted devotion. 
Jesus commended the latter. God is lavish of his affection. 



THE ALABASTER BOX 



361 



Pollen pours itself in showers over the meagerly receptive 
pistil. God's gifts are ever larger than we appropriate. 

The story deserves immortality because the good deed which 
would not have been too good after his death, Mary bestowed 
with prophetic faith on the living Saviour. Blessed is the 
instinct which leads us to say and do good things of the dead. 




THE POOR YE HAVE ALWAYS WITH YOU 



Sad it is that we so often postpone them until death. Mary 
gave to Jesus the best she had. God gives to us his best. 
Mary and Martha had received too good a blessing to mani- 
fest their thankfulness in the gift of a copper coin. Jesus 
appreciates the love that appreciates the love of God, and 
returns it in kind. The rich gift, the gift that represents a 
life's devotion — this God gives, and this we may give. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 



AMID PALM BRANCHES 

Five centuries before the birth of Jesus a young prophet 
whose fervent exhortations and rapt visions had helped to 
bring about the rebuilding of the temple, looked forward to 
the coming of a king to that same temple, and cried, "Rejoice 
greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: 
behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having 
salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the 
foal of an ass" (Zech. 9: 9). 

I do not know what thoughts of glory were in the mind of 
the prophet, nor when he expected the king who was to 
gladden Jerusalem. I only know that nothing occurred in 
the history of the nation that could be counted a fulfilment 
of that inspired hope for five weary centuries. Cyrus had 
been God's messiah for the restoration of Israel to its own 
land, but now that Israel had returned and had a house for 
God's worship, it needed Israel's own king. 

It is a significant fact that these prophecies of Zechariah, 
alone of post-exilic prophecies, treat of the triumph of the 
king that was expected. The suffering servant of God, who 
redeems by sacrifice, had taken the place in prophecy of the 
exalted Messianic ideal of the age of Hezekiah. Here appears 
the vision of a king who is a conqueror, and here it is a peace- 
ful conquest. Christ appeared in Jerusalem in early spring five 
centuries later, meek, yet a conqueror; exulting, yet with tears 
on his face. 

We are interested in the simple preparations for the entry 
into the city. Only in their spiritual significance can they 
seem otherwise than meager and poor. In the old days of 
Davidic simplicity, the king and his sons rode upon asses or 

362 



AMID PALM BRANCHES 



363 



mules, but since the time of Solomon the horse had been the 
fitting beast for royalty. But Jesus definitely chose the hum- 
bler, but in Judaea the more useful, animal. To the disciples 
every detail in the preparation was most eagerly obeyed. 




THE ROAD FROM JERICHO TO JERUSALEM 



They understood that now Jesus was about to declare himself 
the Christ to the people as he had to themselves, and to accept 
the allegiance which all along the multitude had gladly offered 



him if he would come as King. 



364 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

We cannot help sharing in the joy of the disciples as they 
completed the simple preparations commanded by Jesus for 
his entry into Jerusalem. Now, we say to ourselves, is coming 
his real glory. We cannot understand why he has so per- 
sistently hidden himself when he was famous, and appeared 
when he was in danger. Now preparations begin which we can 
understand. Walking is for peasants or for teachers in humble 
life; to ride is regal. He who came before us going up to 
Jerusalem and pressing forward eagerly until his arrival, while 
we followed slowly with heavy hearts, ready indeed, to die 
with him, yet sorely disappointed and perplexed, begin now 
to understand it. The Lord did not come to die, after all. 
He has resources which hitherto he has not exhibited. We 
have seen nothing like his present demeanor. For him to 
ride is a new thing, and it means a new attitude toward the 
question of his Messianic mission. We are partly right. Jesus 
is taking a new step. He who has refused to tell men who 
he was, and charged his disciples to tell no man, is proclaiming 
on the housetops what hitherto he has told in the ear. His 
triumphal entry is a proclamation of his sovereignty. 

The disciples read the change of purpose in his confident, 
authoritative tones. Even as they go for the ass, which he 
does not ask for, but impresses as a general might do, they 
recall the words of the prophet that so the King shall come, 
riding upon the colt of an ass. And now they have the beast, 
and now the Lord is mounted upon him. The disciples gather 
about him as he mounts. They watch him as he begins the 
ascent. How regal he looks! There is something imperial in 
his bearing, as he rides in conscious state. And now, as the 
crest of Olivet is almost reached, over the top swarm the 
crowds from the city, coming out to meet him, and the two 
processions meet. It is a moment of thrilling joy. Each 
company is surprised by the presence of the other crowd, and 
the enthusiasm of each mounts higher as it catches new flame 
from the spirit of the other. The Master does not restrain 
them. He seems to yield himself to their joy, which now is 
past all bounds. They tear banners from the fresh-leaved 



AMID PALM BRANCHES 



365 



trees. They rend off the palms along the way. They carpet 
the rough road with their garments, and cry, "Blessed is the 
king of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!" 

A few steps farther, and the caravan rounded the crest of 
the hill, and there the procession halted. The road below was 
still thronged with singing pilgrims from the city. The whole 
hillside seemed alive with them. The scene was one to kindle 
the enthusiasm and to fire the imagination. Below lay the city 
like a dream of heaven. Nearest to the Mount of Olives stood 




JESUS LAMENTING OVER JERUSALEM — (EASTLAKE) 



the temple, radiant in its gold and marble. The whole land- 
scape was beautiful in the sunlight of that Syrian April. It 
was an early spring, with the fig-trees already in leaves and 
fruit. The drought had not yet come to dry up the water- 
courses, and Kedron lay below fertile and cool. The light fell 
rich on palm and olive and new-born grass, in their various 
tints of green. In the midst of a setting of emerald hills lay 
Jerusalem, like a glistening, iridescent gem. 

Then the joy departed from the face of Jesus, and he wept. 
All the evangelists tell of the triumphal entry, but only one 



366 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

tells of this strange incident which accompanied it. To all of 
them it must have been incomprehensible. They had seen 
Christ weep before, at the grave of Lazarus. They had heard 
his sigh of sorrow for the sufferers whom he healed. It had 
always seemed strange that Christ wept when about to dry 
the tears on the faces of others. But it was passing strange 
that he should weep now. For this was the hour of his triumph. 

But what a triumph it was! Humble was the beast on which 
Jesus rode, and it was not his own. The banners waved in 
his honor were neither of silk nor cloth of gold, but only 
extemporized flags torn from the trees. No carpet was spread 
for him, save the garments of his followers, courteous in their 
rude kindness as England's most flattering courtier to Queen 
Elizabeth; it was their best. But what a contrast was this 
procession and one that would leave Jerusalem before the week 
was over! 

The triumphal entry was a forcing of the issue between 
Christ and the hierarchy. It was not a declaration of hostili- 
ties, but it was a diplomatic ultimatum. By it Christ meant 
to force the hand of his opponents. It was his public procla- 
mation of royalty. It was meant to compel his opponents 
either to acknowledge him or to put him to death. While 
Christ did not employ, and did not threaten to employ, force, 
still the terror of a popular uprising was the real force that was 
to bring about his end. This event forever placed Christ's 
attitude above that of supine non-resistance. It was a war 
measure, and was so understood. He distinctly informed his 
disciples that the time had come for them to buy swords, and 
to take prudent means for their own defense. He distinctly 
set his former course over against his present policy, calling 
that to their minds, together with the fact that it had suc- 
ceeded; yet, even as he acknowledged, the success of his 
former pacific attitude toward his enemies now called for a 
change that made his work aggressive. For the time it 
seemed as though the new plan had succeeded. 

Both the disciples and the enemies of Jesus overestimated 
the immediate importance of this extraordinary event. The 



AMID PALM BRANCHES 



367 



disciples felt that now the world was about to follow Jesus, 
and the priests declared that they had staked all and lost. They 
had prevailed nothing; the world had gone after him. But 
the movement was certain to bring a reaction unless Jesus 
followed his advantage, and that day he simply looked about 
the temple and returned to Bethany. So closed the first day 
of this eventful week. 




THE GOLDEN GATE OE JERUSALEM 
NOW WALLED UP 



The Golden Gate of Jerusalem is the traditional gate of the 
triumphal entry. It has long been walled up, and it is popu- 
larly said that it will not be reopened till Christ comes again 
to enter it. The walls of Jerusalem, and with them the gates, 
are all modern; and the Golden Gate was not there when Jesus 
entered, though it may occupy nearly the original site. Not 



368 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

through that gate, but through the door of the hearts of men 
he waits to enter in more enduring triumph. 

But the triumphal procession did not end at the Golden 
Gate of the Holy City. Looking backward across the centu- 
ries we see it wending its way from the gates of Jerusalem 
down to the present time. We see it forming before the gates 
of Rome as it formed before the gates of Jerusalem. Nero 
is upon his bloody throne, and those who come to announce 
the coming of the King are scornfully put to death, but they 
keep coming. Peter is crucified, Paul is beheaded, but the 
faith lives. The procession lengthens. The palm-bearing: 
throng multiply. They are thrust into the arena and the 
beasts turned loose among them, but they come. Heralds in 
such numbers no king ever had before or since. They throng 
Rome. They are in Nero's palace. By the lurid glow of the 
city in flames they stand confessed by thousands. They mul- 
tiply in the dread light of the conflagration and of the more 
bitter persecution which follows. Above the throne of Nero 
rises more and more clearly into vision the throne of God and 
Christ, and in less than three centuries the religion of Jesus is 
the official religion of the Roman empire. 

The procession turns northward, and knocks at the gates 
of ice and snow where dwell the rugged barbarians that have 
already in their callous grip the scepter of the Roman state. 
Out in the forests of Germany it finds them, and far north in 
the snows of Scandinavia, rugged and fierce, but with brain 
and brawn for the making of nations of giants. The forests 
divide and leave a way for the procession to enter. The ice 
gates melt at the King's approach. Old heathen customs are 
reclaimed, and endowed with Christian significance. The 
winter solstice becomes the anniversary of the birth of Christ, 
and the vernal equinox the anniversary of his resurrection. 
The death of winter and the new life of spring which for ages 
has been a central feature of their religious joy, become trans- 
figured with the thought of the new life which the Christ 
brings to all the world, and of the death of the last enemy, 
which is death. Heathenism stands before the procession like 



AMID PALM BRANCHES 



369 



a blank wall, but as Christ approaches the gates are opened. 
The Saviour enters, and the hammer of Thor goes down before 
the cross of Christ. 

We look across the channel to the isles of the North Sea, 
waiting to see if the procession can cross. One day Pope 
Hildebrand, a mighty reformer and missionary superintendent, 
sees some fair-skinned and blue-eyed slaves for sale in the 
markets of Rome. "Who are you?" he asks. "We are 
Angles," they say. "Angles?" said the pope; "you shall be 





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THE GOLDEN GATE — INTERIOR 



angels," and forthwith the missionaries are sent to tell the 
Angles and Saxons that a new King is at the door. The old 
king Ethelbert likes it little that a new king should ask for 
entrance, but asks his wife Bertha. It is a woman's hand that 
opens the gates of Great Britain to the preaching of the 
gospel. About thirteen centuries ago, in 597, the old king 
hears the gospel and believes. Pentecost is a drop in the 
bucket to this. Ten thousand in a single day are baptized in 
the name of the Christ, and Great Britain with all the future 



370 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

glory of Anglo-Saxon civilization acknowledges as King him 
who rode humbly into Jerusalem. 

We strain our eyes and dimly discern to the westward a 
new and nameless continent, but the ocean is wide and deep, 
and the humble beast that was ridden by the Christ may not 
cross thither. For ages it lies waste. But look yonder at 
those white-winged ships that are flying low across the waters. 
Whose are these, and who is it stands at the helm? Columbus? 
Yes; but Who with him is eagerly crossing to this land of 
promise? For see, the vessels have come to anchor, and now 
a procession forms and marches up the shore, and who is in 
the van? What is it before which those Spanish sailors kneel 
and kiss the dust of the new land? Columbus? Nay, it is the 
cross! And the new world has flung open wide her gates 
that the King of glory may come in. 

When William Penn comes into Pennsylvania to teach his 
message of peace to warlike savages, the Christ is there before 
him. When the Mayflower drops anchor in Plymouth harbor, 
and the little procession forms to march up the bleak hill to 
the cannon-crested meeting-house on its top, it is neither 
Elder Brewster nor Governor Bradford, nor yet Miles Standish 
we see at its head. The Christ that rode in triumph into 
Jerusalem is leading them now up the hill that is to be conse- 
crated by their prayers and enriched by their sacred dust. 

The centuries go by, and in the clouds and thunder of battle 
we see him again coming in peace to a new-born nation, in 
which all men are born free and equal. Yet not all, for again 
he cometh in storm-clouds of war, and the gates of the slave 
market go down before him and crumble into dust. In the 
tumult of the nations with the clashing of steel on steel, with 
the pounding of iron balls on the sides of iron vessels, there is 
heard again the Voice that spoke in the storm on Galilee, and 
there is seen the form of Him who rode in triumph into 
Jerusalem. 

Still Jesus rides on in power. Mighty nations open their 
gates at his approach. Jungles and forests make a highway 
for his coming. Valleys are exalted, mountains and hills are 
laid low. The crooked is made straight and the rough places 



AMID PALM BRANCHES 



371 



plain, and the glory of the Lord is revealed, and all flesh sees 
it together, for it is the mouth of the Lord that speaks when 
the voice of the herald cries in the wilderness. 

Yet doth he weep as he looks clown upon the cities that 
receive him, for not yet is his will done on earth as it is done 
in heaven. Every triumph thus far is mingled with sadness, 
for men's hearts are hard, and their eyes are holden. Men 
there still are who crucify him in their hearts, and reject the 
Lord that comes to save them. 




THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



Yet in majesty he rides onward through the centuries. Our 
learning is his. Our literature is his. Our highest art is his. 
Our noblest music is his. Our loftiest spires lift up his cross 
to heaven. Our sweetest humanities are his. His are our 
charities, our infirmaries, our reformatories, our hospitals, our 
libraries, our colleges. Japan opens its doors to the new Occi- 
dental learning, and receives with it the Christ. China wel- 
comes the medical missionary, and with him the Great 
Physician steps in. African solitudes are penetrated by the 



37^ 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



feet of the explorer, and in every track of his is set the foot 
that was pierced with the nail. 

So the triumphal procession wends its way down the long- 
vista and is lost to our sight in the glory of the future. It doth 
not yet appear what shall be its culmination, save this, that his 
will shall be done on earth as in heaven; that he that was once 
with us is now in us; that he will be with us always; that the 
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the 
waters cover the sea; and that every knee shall bow and every 
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father. 













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THE HEAD OF CHRIST — (MAKOUSKY) 



CHAPTER XXXVII 



JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 

We are able to follow with practical certainty the program 
of Jesus in the last week of his earthly life. On Sunday, Mark 
tells us, "He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and 
when he had looked round about upon all things, it being now 
eventide, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve" (Mark 
ii : n). On Monday morning, as recorded by Mark, "they 
were come out from Bethany," and came "to Jerusalem," "and 
every evening he went forth out of the city." Luke tells us 
that, "Every day he was teaching in the temple; and every 
night he went out, and lodged in the mount that is called 
the mount of Olives" (Luke 21: 37). 

By piecing together the accounts of the evangelists we 
know very nearly what happened on each day of the week. 

On Monday Jesus rose early, the glow of the previous day's 
enthusiasm still upon him, and hastened to the city before 
breakfast. We may be sure it was his own determination to 
go early, and no failure in Martha's hospitality that sent him to 
the city before breakfast. He saw a fig-tree on the way, whose 
rich display of leaves promised green fruit. On March 9, 1902, 
I ate a green fig in Palestine, grown as large as a small plum, 
while yet the leaves were forming. The fig was not good, but 
fit to stay one's hunger in an emergency, and so used by the 
natives. It was not unreasonable to expect that a tree with 
such a rich profusion of leaves would have fruit. 

The cursed fig-tree was, of course, his own nation. It had 
been professing much and producing little fruit. To it he 
had come in the full time, and found it zealous for form, but 
indifferent to fruitage, and its doom was near. Jesus had little 
pleasure in cursing anything, even a barren tree; and in the 

37.1 



374 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



parable he represents himself as the gardener pleading for 
another opportunity to bring such a tree to fruitfulness (Luke 
13: 7-9). Such an opportunity he was this day to give to 
Jerusalem. The curse is less notable than the extension of 
opportunity. Fruitless Jerusalem has one more chance. 

The disciples were more impressed by the miracle of the 
withering of the fig-tree than by the lesson from it. Christ 




STREET LEADING TO THE CHURCH 
OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 



did not recur to the real lesson of the cursing of the tree — the 
penalty of fruitlessness. There were many uncompleted lessons 
whose meanings came later to them. It was quite unnecessary 
to tell the disciples more plainly that his mission to his own 
nation was to fail of bringing them to fruitage. Instead, he 
gave them the lesson of faith in prayer. I think we are quite 
justified in saying it was wholly incidental to the one he reallv 



JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 



375 



meant to teach. And, lest the fig-tree might suggest the use 
of malevolence in prayer, he taught them that prayer and 
kindness go hand in hand, and that he who prays must forgive. 
Thus the final effect of the lesson of the withered tree is not 
that of retribution; it is that of kindness and forgiveness. 




THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 



Jesus had cleansed the temple at the beginning of his 
ministry, but the old abuses had returned. Now at the close 
he repeated the driving out of the merchants. Monday was 
the day of Christ's authority. The spell of his influence over 
the multitude still held; and the Pharisees and priests kept 
their distance. It was an indignant hand that held the scourge 



376 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



and used it well. There was behind it muscle that was capable 
of earning a day's wages at manual labor. Jesus was a non- 
conformist. He had no love for the merely formal in worship. 
He could easily bring himself to prophesy the overthrow of 
the temple, and to proclaim himself greater than the temple. 
Yet the temple was God's house to him. 

Out went the money-changers, and in came another throng, 
not more desirable in appearance — the lame, the blind and 




THE SO-CALLED CENTER OF THE WORLD — GREEK CATHEDRAL 
IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 



the sick. These, the needy, were with him after the others 
withdrew with their wealth. Need brings many a man to 
Jesus, while he who has enough without, goes away with that 
for which he has bartered his life. 

But the needy, whose coming is often open to a possible 
suspicion, were not the only ones. The children continued the 
praises of yesterday. First of those who caught up the glad 
shout that greeted him, they were the last to desist. There is 



JESUS IN THE TEMPLE 



377 



less patience in the Orient than here with insubordination of 
children, and the effort to stop the disturbance was resolute 
but ineffective. At last it was necessary to appeal to Jesus to 
forbid the children to disturb the sanctuary with their shouts, 
but Jesus refused. Quoting a verse from the Psalms, he 
reminded them that God receives perfect praises from the lips 
of children. It was a glad sound to him who had ever been a 
lover of children, and it formed a fitting close for the Monday 
of passion week. It is good for us to remember it, and to close 
our thought of this triumphant day with the memory of the 
songs of these happy little ones singing praises to Jesus. 




JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 



JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 

When Jesus returned to the temple on Tuesday morning he 
found his opponents ready for him. They had been put to rout 
by the triumphal entry on Sunday, and were appalled by the 
courage and vigor of his onset on Monday when he cleansed 
the temple. But forty-eight hours had gone by, and the 
opponents of Jesus saw the reaction setting in. Jesus had had 
his own way quite long enough. The populace does not enjoy 
seeing things go the same way too long at a time. The time 
had come when popular interest would at least sustain a 
challenge, and back of the challenge there was organized 
opposition such as never before had met Christ. Politics 
makes strange bedfellows. On this day Sadducees and Phari- 
sees forgot their mutual hatreds, and combined forces against 
him. So they met him on his arrival on the temple area with 
the demand, "By what authority doest thou these things?" 

But the first challenge failed at once. Jesus met their 
question with another, a shrewd question, one that put them 
immediately in a dilemma. Was the teaching of John from 
heaven, or of men? The lawyers dared not answer. There still 
was reason to fear the people, who. now that John was dead, 
more than ever believed him a prophet. It is interesting to 
find that to this last week of his life Jesus found a measure of 
protection, as at the outset he found his opening for his 
ministry, in the name and fame of John. 

Jesus followed the challenge of his authority with three 
parables of warning. The first was that of the two sons whom 
the father commanded to work in his vineyard, one said, "I 
go, sir," but went not; the other said, "I will not," but after- 
ward went. It was a direct charge that the religious leaders 

378 



JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 



379 



of the Jewish people had failed to fulfil their promise, and that 
"the publicans and the harlots" would go before them into the 
kingdom of God. 

The second parable was that of the wicked husbandman. 
The owner of the vineyard sent repeatedly for his rental, but 
they beat and even killed the messengers. Finally he sent his 




THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 



son. But they killed the son in their hatred and greed. Jesus 
asked his hearers, "When therefore the lord of the vineyard 
shall come, what will he do unto those husbandmen ?" 

Some were candid enough to answer, "He will miserably 
destroy those miserable men, and will let out the vineyard 
unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in 
their seasons." 



380 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

Then Jesus told them that the kingdom of God was forfeited 
by them, and would be given to others. 

The third parable was that of the marriage of the king's 
son. Invitations do not commonly go begging at such times, 
but Jesus supposed such a case; those invited not only refused 
the great honor, but maltreated the king's ambassadors. But 
the marriage did not wait, and the guests were found. The 
unwillingness of those first invited brought sorrow upon them- 
selves, but did not frustrate the design of the king. The lessons 
of these three parables did not fail to be perceived by those 
to whom they were addressed. The Jews had neglected God's 
invitation, scorned his ambassadors, and were cherishing mur- 
derous hatred against his son. They would be rejected, and 
the privileges of the gospel bestowed on others. 

But the Pharisees had a trap for Jesus. They came to him 
with honeyed words of praise, and followed them with a ques- 
tion, certain, as they thought, to entrap him: "Master, we 
know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, 
and carest not for any one: for thou regardest not the person 
of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful 
to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?" It was a shrewd question. 
If he advised the payment he could not claim to be king; if 
he forbade it, he made himself a rebel against Rome. But 
Jesus said, "Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the 
tribute money." And they brought him a denarius. Jesus 
asked them, "Whose is this image and superscription?" They 
answered "Caesar's." Then said he to them, "Render therefore 
unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the 
things that are God's." 

Then came the Sadducees and proposed a hypothetical case, 
that of a woman who had been seven times married; whose 
wife should she be in the resurrection? Jesus answered that 
in heaven the physical relationships of earthly marriage have 
no reason to exist, and that its people are as the angels of 
God. I do not understand him to have said that in heaven no 
account is taken of married life on earth, or that relationship 
of years established here are there to count for nothing; but 



JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 



38l 



rather that the inherent spirituality of heaven makes marriage, 
as it has need to be on earth, impossible by reason of its spirit- 
ual companionship. 

Then the Pharisees, hearing that he had silenced the Sad- 
ducees, rallied their forces and came with another question, 
"Which is the greatest commandment of the law?" The 
rabbins taught that there were two hundred and forty-eight 
affirmative precepts, as many as the members of the human 
body, and three hundred and sixty-five negative commands, 




TRIBUTE TO CAESAR (BIDA, 1813-1895) 



as many as the arteries and veins. The total, six hundred and 
thirteen, was the number of letters in the decalogue. Which 
of these six hundred and thirteen commands was the greatest? 
Jesus replied that God's commands are a unit — love, which 
applied alike to God and man, and embraced the whole law. 
The questioner could not fail to see the wisdom of the answer. 
His approval of the answer of Christ was immediate and 
hearty. Jesus said to him, "Thou art not far from the kingdom 
of God." Let us hope that he did not fail to enter it. 



382 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

These three questions, one political, one theological, one 
legal, had exhausted the opponents of Christ. Every time 
the question turned upon him who asked it. Jesus had met 
his challengers with great skill and wisdom and courtesy, and 
they had retreated baffled. Then Jesus asked a question, 
"What think ye of the Christ? whose son is he?" They 
answered him, "The son of David." He then asked them, 
"How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, 
The Lord said unto my Lord, 
Sit thou on my right hand, 
Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet? 
If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son?" (Matt. 22: 
42-45.) In that day men were not accustomed to call their 
sons Lord. How was the Messiah to be both David's son and 
his Lord? God was sending a greater Christ than the people 
were expecting to receive. No one could answer the question, 
and it ended the attempt to compel Jesus to commit himself 
on matters that would afford ground for his condemnation. 
But as he confuted the Pharisees, the common people heard 
him gladly. 

Then Jesus delivered his long and bitter invective against 
the religious rulers of the Jews (Matt. 23: 2, 3). From warn- 
ing his disciples against them, he turned and addressed the 
scribes and Pharisees, charging them with hypocrisy, with 
excess of ceremonial and neglect of moral life, and with wash- 
ing the outside of the dish, and leaving it unclean within. 
These were stern words, and the Pharisees must have writhed 
under them. But the discourse ended with a tearful invitation 
and lament that showed the tender-breaking heart of the 
Master. 

Jesus, wearied, now sat down for a brief time in the court of 
the women, opposite the treasury. There were thirteen trum- 
pet-shaped openings into which people were casting their gifts. 
Many people who had come far to the feast brought consid- 
erable sums. But there was one poor widow who dropped in 
two of the smallest and least valuable coins. It was not lawful 
for any person, no matter how poor, to offer only one of these 



JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 



383 



petty coins; hers was the minimum gift. But Jesus saw it 
and commended it as the largest of all the contributions. It 
was so. The aggregate of gifts inspired by that contribution 
makes its total the greatest of all donations of money since the 
world began; but Jesus measured the gift by the sacrifice 
which it represented. The cash value of the first gift was one 
ninety-sixth of a denarius — a little less than two mills — but it 
has inspired gifts which have aggregated millions, and has 
taught the world the spirit of Christ in giving. 



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INSCRIPTION ON THE STONE FROM THE TEMPLE 



Jesus now rose and passed clown the fourteen steps below 
the Beautiful Gate, into the court of the Gentiles. This was 
a great paved inclosure, seven hundred and fifty feet square, 
open to men and women, Jews and Gentiles, so long as they 
observed due decorum. Here, also, until the preceding day, 
had been the cattle and dove dealers and money-changers. 
Near the entrance was a marble screen four and a half feet 
high, having an inscription in Greek, warning Gentiles to go 
no farther on pain of death. Singularly, of all the stones of 
the temple, this one, still bearing its battered inscription, is 
the only one known to be preserved. As I traced its letters 
in the government museum at Constantinople, I reflected that 



384 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

while not a stone had been left upon another, this had served 
to remind us that God had broken down "the middle wall of 
partition" erected by the exclusiveness of men, that so all men 
may enter the most holy place. 

Outside this stone a little group of Gentiles waited. They 
were probably proselytes of the Jewish religion and had come 
to the temple to worship. "We would see Jesus," they said to 
Philip. Philip hesitated; Jesus was wearied with the contro^ 
versy; he had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; 
would he see these men? Philip asked Andrew, and the two 
met Jesus as he was about to depart from the treasury, and 
presented the request. Jesus heard it and rejoiced. 

It was like a new beam from the star of Bethlehem, guiding 
men from afar to the Christ. Then wise men from the East 
came to his cradle; now humble souls from the West came near 
to his cross; both were representatives of the great unconverted 
world without, turning from its vain quest of the good in other 
religions, and finding at last, Jesus. Beautiful was this light 
from heaven, shining into the hearts of these two companies 
of men, and lighting with reflected glory the dawn and the 
twilight of the earthly life of Jesus. 

An ancient and unfounded tradition asserts that these 
Greeks were ambassadors from Abgarus, king of Edessa, who, 
hearing that Jesus was in danger, sent an invitation to him to 
come to his kingdom for safety. Abgarus was healed by a 
disciple, probably Luke, whom Jesus sent to him; and further 
legend asserts that Luke painted for Abgarus a portrait of 
Jesus. These are interesting myths. All that we know is, that 
as Jesus was rejected by his own nation a little group of repre- 
sentatives of the great Gentile world waited for him, and that 
Jesus rejoiced in spirit, saying, "If I be lifted up from the earth, 
I will draw all men unto myself." 

As Jesus was departing from the temple, his disciples called 
his attention to the immense size of the stones and the mag- 
nificence of the building, and Jesus said what too soon came 
true, "See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There 
shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not 
be thrown down" (Matt. 24: 2). 



JESUS IN CONTROVERSY 385 

They went out from the temple to the Mount of Olives, 
where they sat and looked back at Jerusalem, beautiful in the 
setting sun. There the disciples asked him, "Tell us, when 
shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy com- 
ing, and of the consummation of the age?" 

The three things, the destruction of Jerusalem, the sign of 
his presence, and the end of that age were grouped together 
in their thoughts, and Jesus answered that the then present 
generation should not pass till all these things were fulfilled. 
It was the promise made (Matt. 16: 28) before that some 
standing there should not see death till they saw the coming 
of the kingdom. These declarations he later seemed to make 
more specific in the implied promise that while Peter was to 
glorify God by his death, John was to "tarry till I come." The 
destruction of the temple, which made the Christian religion 
universal, and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, were the 
signs of the promised presence of Christ, a presence, as Jesus 
told his disciples, manifest to them but not to the world. 
Jesus declared that he who was then with them, should be in 
them. Whatever special revelations of that presence God 
has yet to reveal, this spiritual residence in and among men 
is the real coming of Christ. 

The lessons on Olivet ended with the parable of the Ten 
Virgins, which was given to teach watchfulness; the parable 
of the talents, whose lesson was fidelity, and the judgment 
scene. The tests at the judgment scene are all practical. 
Those who render service to his brethren, render it to Christ, 
and find Christ in their fellow men, and heaven in his service. 

Heaven is reached by the road of self-forgetfulness. Those 
who strive to be good in order that they may go to heaven 
may not wholly fail to get there, but they will come far behind 
those who simply seek to do good, and in so doing become 
good. Even the Son of God turned his back on heaven for 
our sakes; wherefore God highly exalted him and gave him the 
name that is above every name, both in earth and heaven. 
Those who strive for heaven often fall short, by reason of the 
selfishness of their effort; but a multitude of those on the right 



3 86 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



hand of the king are there by reason of the good deeds done 
and forgotten. "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and 
fed thee?" they ask. They enter with glad wonder and sur- 
prise; for they have been so busy giving cups of cold water 
in the spirit of Christ, that they almost forgot to seek heaven 
for themselves. Nevertheless the Lord knoweth them that are 
his. Wherefore take courage; forget thyself; help thy brother 
in the name and spirit of the Christ; and lo, heaven for thee is 
hardly out of sight. 




Courtesy of the Open Court. 

THE MAN OF SORROWS (EDUARD BrEDERMANN). 



CHAPTER XXXIX 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 

We have no record of Wednesday, and we need none. Jesus 
was in retirement in Bethany, and the priests were plotting in 
Jerusalem. Alone of Jesus' disciples, Judas went to the city, 
and agreed upon a plot whereby Jesus might be betrayed with- 
out the making of a tumult. Alas for Judas, who, disappointed 
in the delay of the coming of the kingdom, gave covetousness 
free rein, and became the most hated of all traitors since the 
world began! 

We can easily imagine that Wednesday in the home at Beth- 
any. Part of the day Jesus doubtless spent in rest after the busy 
and exciting scenes of the previous days; part of it he must 
have spent in prayer, and we can gather the burden of the 
prayer from that which he offered for his disciples the next 
night in Gethsemane (John 17); and part of it he doubtless 
spent in instructing his disciples. The beautiful lesson of the 
vine and the branches might well have been spoken at the 
paschal supper, but it fits somewhat loosely into its setting, 
and it has been thought possible by some scholars that Jesus 
spoke it, or portions of it, in the vineyards of beautiful, shady 
Bethany on this unrecorded Wednesday. The spirit of it 
certainly was the spirit of that day. 

Thursday was the day for the preparation of the passover 
supper, and Jesus withdrew from the home of Martha and 
Mary and Lazarus to a house in the city where he was well 
known and had a friend. There was a large upper room vacant 
there, where he and his disciples could celebrate together the 
anniversary of the exodus according to the time-honored cus- 
tom of the nation. A room in Jerusalem is still shown as that 
in which Christ ate the supper with his disciples. If we could 

387 



3 88 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



be at all sure of its genuineness it would be the most sacred 
room in the world, not only because of that night, but also 
because of the days following the resurrection and ascension, 
until at Pentecost the Church was born. There is no proba- 
bility that the room is authentic. I attended a service in 
Jerusalem, an evening communion service in an upper room, 
filled with tourists from all over America, with reverent wor- 
shipers of Jerusalem and missionaries from other parts of Syria. 




christ washint. peter s feet 
(ford maddox erown, 182 i -1893) 



It was a service whose memories can never be lost while life 
lasts. But the essential spirit of such a service is not limited to 
Jerusalem; it belongs to all those everywhere who meet in the 
fellowship of Christ's spirit. 

After the passover and before the Lord's Supper, Judas 
went out. The disciples did not realize that he had gone 
otherwise than on an errand, but Judas knew that he was 
expelled from that company. His plot had reached its 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 



389 



culmination, and the Lord was ready. When he had gone out, 
Jesus spoke freely to his disciples, and broke bread with them 
in a new sacrament. 

k 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one 
another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
another." 



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jesus washing peter s feet 
(boccaccino, 15 15-1546) 



So said our Lord at the table. There was nothing new in 
the commandment which Christ gave to his disciples, save the 
measure of the duty enjoined. There were ten ancient and 
honored commandments, and this did not add an eleventh. It 
comprehended and enveloped the ten. Love is the fulfilling 
of the law, and he that loveth is born of God. Whatever there 
was new about it was first in the comprehensiveness of the 



390 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

statement, and secondly in the measure given by which love 
is to be gauged. 

That it is our duty to love one another is a commonplace. 
If we have not learned it long ago, we shall not learn it now. 
Nor could those twelve short-sighted men in their unseemly 
strife for the best seats at the table learn in a single lesson 
what they had not learned in years of tuition under the divine 
Teacher. But there is a standard given us which we may 
impress a little more clearly upon our minds, however we fall 
below it in actual attainment. 

"Even as I have loved you." There is the emphasis. A 
measure of love is relatively easy, the love that goes out toward 
the agreeable, the pleasant, the harmonious. Christ loved the 
unlovely and unlovable, and made them loving. The very 
disciple that leaned upon his breast was a raw, quarrelsome, 
rude young son of thunder, ready to assert his claim to the 
place of honor, ready to call down fire and brimstone on the 
Lord's enemies or his own, ready to empty the vials of apoca- 
lyptic wrath where indeed they deserved to be emptied, upon 
the wicked and the enemies of the truth. The love of Christ 
remade him, and he became the apostle of love. Even as they 
sat together at the table some of the love that beat in the 
heart of Christ gave rhythm to the pulse-beat of John, and as 
he remembered afterward the events of that night, he alone 
of the evangelists recalled and recorded the words, "Abide 
in me; be one as I and my Father are one." 

A part of the mission of the Lord's Supper was to emphasize 
the common source of spiritual life. Eating of one loaf, drink- 
ing from one common cup, the physical life of all present was 
received from one common source of energy. Seated around 
one common board, shut in from the world by a common experi- 
ence and privilege, they shared together the dangers, labors, 
perils and joys of their relation to Jesus. United to him in a com- 
mon bond of love to God and man, they had fellowship in their 
highest spiritual experiences one with another. It is almost 
bewildering the way in which John mixes our relation to Christ 
as a basis of fellowship, and our fellowship as a basis for our 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 391 

relations with Christ. Hear him: "If we walk in the light, as 
he is in the light, we have fellowship" — with him, we might 
expect John to say, but not yet — "we have fellowship one with 
another;" and note the outcome of this friendship: "and the 
blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin." 

No man has ever affected the race powerfully till he has 
come to feel the truth that his life belongs to the race. No 
man is truly a Christian who has not come to feel something 
of the passion for men which animated Christ. An unsocial 
gospel is a contradiction in terms. Christian fellowship is 
essential to Christianity itself. It ever drapes itself in new 
garments. It ever expresses itself in new and lovely forms 
of service. Now it breaks the alabaster box in an ingenuity 
which shows how inventive is affection, and how unstinted it 
may become; now it washes the feet of Christ or one of the 
least of his little ones, with tears which show more of love 
than the Pharisee's expensive but heartless hospitality. Now 
it waves the palm branch before his oncoming kingdom, pre- 
paring the way of the Lord, and now it tenderly and sorrow- 
fully anoints the dead hope which it lays away that a better 
one may rise; but ever and always is love beautiful and holy, 
unselfish and inventive; ever and always it is born of God. 
The love that makes a man at one with his neighbor is one 
with the love which makes him at one with God. 

"A new commandment I give unto you." Yet it is the very 
same of which John said, "No new commandment write I unto 
you, but an old commandment which ye had from the begin- 
ning." Love is ever new. It has to be new. It will no more 
keep than manna. Daily it must be gathered, and daily it falls 
anew from heaven. There is ever a supply. Prophecies, 
tongues, knowledge fail; but love, the reservoir of love from 
which we may draw, never faileth. 

It may have been to Jesus an inspiring thought that the 
simple meal which he shared with his disciples on that night 
would be imitated in symbol by millions for unnumbered 
generations, in obedience to his simple word, "This do in 
remembrance of me." But of this we may believe that he 



392 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

would think less than of the other fact that, inspired by 
that symbol, and the common source of life and love which it 
depicts, men would love one another in the spirit of the Christ 
ideal. His spirit has given the name to the highest and noblest 
type of love: 

Blest be the tie that binds, 
Our hearts in Christian love. 

The love that is patient, that can be brave, that redeems by 
the giving- of itself, the love that was in Christ for his disciples, 
and in them for him, and in them for each other, is the love 
that the Lord's Supper sets forth. It sets the world of the 
faithful about one common board. It brings the noble spirits 
of all ages to one common feast. It sends out its swift heralds 
to proclaim to the world, "The feast is ready; come." It 
takes hold on the life which is in the vine of Christ's love, and 
is rooted deep in the ineffable nature of God. Its tendrils hold 
fast to his eternal promises, by which it bears its fruit higher 
and higher in each successive season; and its topmost cluster 
of love that once was of earth, and is now just beyond our 
reach, furnishes the new wine of that purer affection which he 
drinks with his disciples in the kingdom of his Father. 

The Lord's Supper in its origin is closely associated with 
the observance of the Jewish passover, but it is in no proper 
sense a perpetuation of that celebration. It was a new thing 
which Jesus instituted among his disciples on the night in 
which he was betrayed, and from that day to this without 
interruption it has been observed by them. 

"This do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." 
It is entirely possible that our Lord meant more by this than 
a reference to the supper itself. He may have meant that all 
food is to be thus eaten, with thanksgiving and memory of 
him who is the Bread of life. His was the custom of giving 
thanks to God for his food, and as he taught his disciples to 
pray for daily bread, so also he taught them the lesson of 
thankfulness, and would associate all God's gifts with the 
thought of his supreme Gift. His disciples recognized him at 
Emmaus as with simple dignity he, the guest, took the place 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 



393 



of the host at the table and gave thanks, and was made known 
in the breaking of bread. But if every household meal in a 
Christian home is fitted to be a memorial of Christ, much more 
so may be that breaking of bread in his own household of faith, 
where his followers have assembled in his name for his worship 
and work. 

The Lord's Supper, both as instituted and as now observed, 
is a rich illustration of the subordination of the spirit to the 




THE UPPER ROOM — JERUSALEM 

letter. Jesus observed the passover on that night, not with 
girt sandals, nor standing, nor with a staff in hand, nor in 
haste, nor with any apparent concern for a strict conformity 
to the letter of the command. In like manner the Lord's 
Supper as now observed departs widely in its form from the 
supper which he instituted, and the form varies widely in dif- 
ferent branches of the Church. Yet the spirit is better 
observed because of these changes in the letter. To Christ, 
form had value only so far as it preserved the spirit of a rite. 



394 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

The Lord's Supper should not be a mournful service. Sol- 
emn it is, but for the Christian not sad. It was not the meat of 
the paschal lamb that was taken, but the bloodless bread of the 
table, the common staff of life. It is a feast and not a funeral 
to which Christians gather. The passover was a festival of 
solemnity but a festival still and a festival of rejoicing. Christ 
our passover is sacrificed for us, and our grief for the slain 
Lamb does not prevent rejoicing that our God has passed over 
his people, and led them forth into a large place. 

We still cannot forget the guilt of sin. I doubt if we shall 
wholly cease to regret it, even in heaven. But already we can 
sing with joy the worthiness of the Lamb that was slain, to 
receive power, and riches and wisdom and strength, and honor, 
and glory, and blessing. 

Finally, the Lord's Supper gives us objective reality. For 
this we often seek almost disheartened. We know our own 
hearts too well to hinge our hope of salvation wholly upon 
our own good purposes, and God seems far off. If we had 
something objective and tangible to which to moor our faith, 
it would often be a help. Protestantism must not err in being 
wholly subjective. For God has given to his Church author- 
ity to bind and loose. There are times when souls in need can 
be satisfied with no message that does not voice conscious 
authority. In the Lord's Supper God speaks, saying through 
his Church, "Just so surely as you receive this bread, so surely 
you, being penitent, are forgiven. Just so surely as this bread 
becomes a part of your physical life, and related to your effort 
and labor and thought, just so surely, you being receptive of 
the Spirit of Christ, does his life now enter into yours." Here 
is the divine communication of the life of God. And here is 
the hope of his coming, for his kingdom is within us. Eating 
this bread and drinking this cup we do show forth his death 
until his perfect coming, when, seeing him and being like him, 
all life shall be communion with him, and we shall drink with 
him of the new wine in the kingdom of God. 

It was a sad night for the disciples. The Twelve had come 
up to Jerusalem with Jesus that they might die with him, thus 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 



395 



at the grave of their hope in him as the promised Messiah, 
maintaining the vigor of their faith in him as their Master and 
Teacher and Friend. It was not idle talk with Thomas when 
he said (John n: 16), "Let us also go, that we may die with 
him." He meant every word of it, and showed it as did the 
other disciples by going with him. It was not an idle boast 
with Peter when he said to Christ, "I will follow thee to prison 
and to death." He stood as long as he was allowed to fight, 
and sincerely meant to stand till he died. The apostles were as 




JUDAS RECEIVING THE MONEY (h. PRELL) 



true and reliable as men who trust in themselves ever are. Let 
us not underestimate their devotion or their courage. 

Little wonder that during the last week their faith began to 
waver. Plots were deepening about their Lord, plots which 
he himself had told them were ultimately to succeed. They 
had seen his power and trusted in him. They had heard his 
voice, and leaving all had followed him. When he told them 
of his coming death, they could not believe; not because they 
were disposed to doubt him, but because they so implicitly 



396 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

trusted him. When Peter rebuked him, and said, "Be it far 
free thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee" (Matt. 16: 22), 
it was because he believed so profoundly in the mission of his 
Lord that he could not doubt it; and his smiting off of Mal- 
chus' ear was his impetuous and unwise way of showing the 
same confidence in Christ which had caused him to leave his 
boat and follow, through good and evil report, him who had 
not where to lay his head. 

All their devotion to Christ was built upon their confidence 
in his Messianic mission and its success; and all this was swept 
away, not by their own disposition to doubt, not by the slander 
of enemies but by the words of Christ himself. How touch- 
ing is the picture of their devotion; following him no longer 
for the hope of a share in his glory, but from sheer momentum 
of their past hope, and from simple trust in their Lord, no 
longer the coming Messiah, but only their loved, honored 
Master, now stripped of all that had given him power over 
them, but still loved, honored and followed! They had fol- 
lowed him in hope; now they followed in despair. They could 
not leave him. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" (John 6: 68.) 

But even now their old hope asserted itself, and they began 
to question who should be the greatest in his kingdom, when 
Jesus swept away this last segment of a hope with words which 
they could not fail to understand. So prostrated by grief that 
they could not keep awake when asked by Jesus to watch with 
him, so utterly cast down from the lofty pinnacle of their 
hopes, is it any wonder that they doubted? Despair and hope 
are equally good incentives to nerve men to fight; but hope 
alternating with despair is debilitating and unsettling in its 
tendencies. Their doubt was not willingly forged. It was 
trodden out of the wine-press of their affliction. It was the 
doubt of an anchor torn from its hold, and grappling for 
another place to catch its fluke. 

"Let not your heart be troubled," Jesus had said. How 
could the disciples help being troubled? They listened to his 
words of comfort. He was pointing them to the Father. 
Philip caught at the sound; "Lord, show us the Father." Jesus 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 



397 



had marveled at their unbelief, and rebuked them for it. He 
rebuked Philip now, but it was a kind rebuke, and a very sad 
one. "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou 
not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." Christ's whole life had been an answer to Philip's 
prayer. Yet amid the answer Philip was still praying. The 
mission of Christ upon earth had been to show men the Father, 
and who had believed his report? Men had in all ages been 




THE ALLEGED TOMBS OF ABSALOM, ZECHARIAH AND JAMES, 
WITH GREEK GETHSEMANE IN THE DISTANCE 



feeling after God, if haply they might feel after him and find 
him; Christ came to show that he was not far from every one 
of them. No man had seen God at any time, but the only 
begotten Son who was in the bosom of the Father, came to 
declare him, and show the Father to the children. 

It is a simple theology which cleaves the universe into two 
equal kingdoms of good and evil, and says of each good thing, 
"It is from God," and of each bad one, "It is of the devil." It 
is much the same when for the devil we substitute inexorable 
law. The progress of our thought leaves diminished space in 



398 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

the world for dualism. Only one God is possible to modern 
thought. There is one God. But who, and what, is the God 
of modern thought? 

Science gives us a more absolute monotheism; it makes 
the worship of many gods impossible, but it raises anew the 
question of the character of the one God. We cannot pray 
to a God of mixed motives or vacillating purposes or variable 
whims. We cannot hold spiritual communion with inexorable 
fate. The revelation of Jesus was never so indispensable as just 
now. "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." 

"It sufficeth us." Yes, and no. It might not suffice us to 
know God as Father; it does suffice as Christ has shown him. 
The Athenian notion of God's fatherhood did not suffice. "We 
are also his offspring" is a noble but incomplete sentiment. 
We must know such fatherhood as Jesus revealed, and such 
fellowship as he established, and such assurance as he made 
real, and this sufficeth us. 

Then Jesus told them more of his impending departure. He 
was, indeed, to go from them, but was still to be with them, 
and they were to have him ever present, in the continued 
guidance of the Spirit,, perpetuating and widening his own 
presence. Of the Spirit he promised, "He shall declare unto 
you the things that are to come." 

The promise that the Spirit shall show us things to come is 
not a promise of ability to foretell the future. Rather it 
means, "He shall interpret to you things as they come." If 
our Lord's promise were simply that things were to be 
revealed in advance, it is easy to imagine that he himself might 
have told them in advance instead of reserving them, as he 
expressly did, saying, "I have many things to say unto you." 
If foretelling were the Spirit's one office, then the many things 
which Jesus had to say he might conceivably have said, even 
though the disciples doubtless were not able to bear them, 
waiting till such time as they were ready, and establishing 
meantime a new proof of the fulfilment of prophecy. Mani- 
festly, the progress of events and the leadings of the Spirit 
were to be interpretative, and this was the special office of the 
Soirit. 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 



399 



The need of prescience, in the technical sense of the term, is 
limited and occasional. The need of insight which is truly 
prophetic is constant and universal. Once in a long time God 
may tell a man and commission him to tell his fellow men of 
the coming destruction of a city. In this way God told Abra- 
ham of the coming doom of Sodom, Isaiah of the destruction 
of Tyre, and Jeremiah of the impending desolation of Jerusa- 
lem. But there is daily need that cities shall be preserved from 




GETHSEMANE AND THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 



the doom of anarchy, bad government, worldliness and shame, 
through the ability of living men to interpret the message of 
the Spirit of God to the world and Church of to-day. Again 
there rings forth the sevenfold cry of the Apocalypse, "He 
that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto 
the Churches." 

If inspired men of old could have foreseen, their foresight 
would often have prevented the realization of their predictions. 



400 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The hazard, the uncertainty, has at every step been an impor- 
tant element in determining the event. Among all our bless- 
ings, one of the greatest is that we do not know what is to 
come, and another is that the Spirit interprets the true signifi- 
cance of "things as they come." 

We are too readily content with the discovery of an origin. 
There where our inquiry too commonly ends, it should begin. 




OLD OLIVE TREE IN GETH5EMANE 



We seem to say that if we may but prove that God in the 
beginning made the world, we may acquit him of responsibility 
for it thereafter. But in truth, if the world has no present 
need of God, the history of its past need is not of any very vital 
importance. If the original inspiration of the Scriptures made 
subsequent inspiration superfluous, and they may be utilized 
without present aid of the Spirit, then it were a fair question 



JESUS AMONG HIS FRIENDS 



401 



whether such inspiration were not, in the long run, a detri- 
ment. But the Bible plainly sets forth that creation is con- 
tinuous, that inspiration is continuous. If we deny these 
truths in order that we may exalt a past inspiration or glory 
in a completed creation, we add nothing- to God's glory, but 
rather deny him the glory of a creative work even now but 
begun, and a revelation by his Spirit which can never be com- 
plete till the last redeemed soul has learned its final lesson in 




ON THE WAY TO GETHSEMANE — (c. SCHONHERR) 



a world beyond. We still are guided by the Spirit interpreting 
to us things as they come. 

Jesus talked long with the disciples in the upper room. He 
prayed with them, too, and earnestly. And then, when the 
night was at the midnight hour, and the full paschal moon 
shone down from the meridian, he and the disciples passed out 
into the silent streets, and into the garden, hitherto the scene 
of his rest and prayer, and now to be the scene of his agony 
and betrayal. 



CHAPTER XL 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 

The Greeks and Latins point to different gardens as that of 
Gethsemane, but the original garden must have been larger 
than either, and may have included both. The Latin Geth- 
semane is that most commonly visited by American tourists. 
It is more of a garden and would be a sadly inspiring place 
but for the tawdry shrines, the manifest imposition, and the 
coarse attempt to localize each incident of the agony. There 
are eight old olive trees whose antiquity needs no certificate, 
but which cannot be nineteen hundred years old, though they 
are possibly half that age. Here, or in some garden close at 
hand, near the road to Bethany over the Mount of Olives, 
Jesus suffered and was betrayed. 

Wearied and overborne with sorrow, the disciples slept, but 
Jesus struggled with the question whether it might be possible 
for God in some other way to accomplish the world's salvation. 
Through the night came the soldiers, their torches flashing 
amid the trees. They went not far into the garden; he who 
was in hiding there came forth to meet them. Then Peter 
struck his blow, and, bewildered at Christ's rebuke, ran with 
the rest; and Judas, having done his devilish work, slunk off 
in the night, leaving Jesus alone among his enemies. 

Jesus endured a sevenfold trial. First, he was taken to 
Annas, father-in-law of the high-priest, and owner of the dove 
hatcheries whose sales to the temple Jesus had twice 
obstructed. He had been leader in this dastardly scheme, and 
to his house, by preconcerted arrangement, the officers took 
Jesus. Peter followed, and so did John; and as John had 
acquaintances in the family, he obtained admission, and later, 
seeing Peter at the door, went out and brought him in. Jesus 

402 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



403 



had his informal examination before Annas, and then they led 
him across the court to Caiaphas, the high-priest, and passing 
Peter on the way, just as Peter — alas, poor Peter! — was deny- 
ing him. What a look of sorrow was that which Jesus gave 
him, as, bound and insulted, he was led by, and Peter, the 
brave, the resolute, the boastful, lifted up his voice only to 




JESUS IN GETHSEMANE — (LISKA) 

deny him! Is it any wonder that Peter went out and wept bit- 
terly? The arraignment was soon over, and Jesus was held to 
appear before the Sanhedrin, which was hastily convened in 
illegal session before daylight. Meantime his enemies hur- 
riedly gathered evidence against him. They nearly failed of 
this; they had conducted their plan of capture with so much 



404 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



of secrecy that they had not fortified themselves with evi- 
dence for the trial, and their witnesses did not agree. But by 
diligent effort they were able to procure witnesses who testi- 
fied that Jesus had threatened to destroy the temple and 
rebuild it in three days. Even this was less than they wished, 
and the high-priest demanded of Jesus, "Answerest thou noth- 
ing? what is it which these witness against thee? But he 
held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest 




THE DENIAL OF PETER — (HARRACH) 

asked him, and saith unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son 
of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the 
Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming 
with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest rent his 
clothes, and saith, What further need have we of witnesses? 
Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all 
condemned him to be worthy of death" (Mark 14: 60-64). 
When daylight came they convened in formal session and rati- 
fied the action already determined. 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



40S 



But the Jews could not execute a death sentence, so they 
sent Jesus to Pilate. The charge of blasphemy, on which they 
had condemned him, was not one to which Pilate would give 
attention, so they at first demanded that their verdict should 
be approved without a review of the evidence. When Pilate 




CHRIST BEFORE PILATE — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 

insisted on the accusation, they charged him with stirring up 
an insurrection. Pilate was not convinced, and finding that 
Jesus was from Galilee, he endeavored to evade responsibility 
and at the same time to show courtesy to Herod, with whom 
he had been on bad terms, by giving Jesus a change of venue; 
so he waived jurisdiction and sent him to Herod. 



406 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



Herod was pleased to see Jesus, and at once invited him to 
perform a miracle for his amusement. In this he was dis- 
appointed, for Jesus stood silent before him, and Herod re- 
manded him to Pilate for formal trial. 

Pilate was at his wits' end. He did not want to crucify 
Jesus; he did not believe him guilty. He attempted to dis- 
charge him by resort to an old custom by which a single crim- 
inal was set at liberty at the time of the passover. But the 




CHRIST LEAVING THE PRAETORIUM — (DORE, 1833-1883) 



people, urged by the priests, demanded the release of Barab- 
bas, a well known insurrectionist, instead. Pilate was tempted 
to defy the priests and people and set Jesus at liberty, but the 
priests threatened to do, what later they did, report him to 
Rome and secure his removal; and they had a plausible charge, 
"If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar's friend: every 
one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar" (John 
19: 12). This was the threat that Pilate could not bear. He 
declared that the responsibility was theirs, not his, and he sen- 
tenced Jesus to be crucified. 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



407 



After the trial and condemnation, according to the custom 
of the time, they laid the cross on Jesus to bear it to the 
place of execution. Upon the back where the cruel scourge 
had done its wicked work, was laid the rough and heavy beam. 
Jesus had passed a sleepless night, without food, amid scenes 
and experiences most harrowing to the feelings, and follow- 
ing, as it did, a week of the most intense excitement and 




THE SORROWFUL WAY 



fatigue. He now came to the dread hour with strength 
exhausted, though with faith triumphant. See him as he goes 
forth from Pilate's judgment hall bearing the cruel cross. Heavy 
is the load, yet he bears it uncomplainingly. But he bears it 
with failing human strength. No smallest particle of his 
divine power avails to lighten in the remotest degree that 
crushing load. That power, so ready to relieve the suffering 



4 o8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

or even to add to the pleasure of others, is impotent in his own 
behalf. He saved others; himself he cannot save. Alone he 
treads the wine-press; alone he bears on his heart the sorrows 
and sins of the world. 

As the sad procession slowly wends its way out of the city, 
and ere it yet has passed the gates, the step grows more feeble, 
the form bends lower, the strength ebbs away. He falls behind 
the malefactors as they are hurried along. The crowd hoots 
in derision; the soldiers command him to move on and keep 
up with the others. He makes the effort; he staggers ahead: 
he reels; he falls in the street, and still relentlessly there lies 
on his prostrate form the weight of that accursed burden. Will 
not God lift it? Has divine pity no compassion now? Will 
no one remove it? Are human and divine sympathies alike 
dead? The women of Jerusalem have for years provided by 
subscription for the purchase of wine and myrrh for all who 
are crucified, that by partial stupefaction they may be relieved 
of some part of the anguish of the crucifixion. Some of these 
now drop tears of sympathy as they see him sink beneath the 
cross. But has the heart of man no sympathy, that there is 
none with strong arms as well as tender heart to lift the cross 
and bear it for him to Calvary? 

Yet, if pity did not lighten Jesus' burden, impatience at the 
delay did. The soldiers were in a hurry. The Jews were anx- 
ious to get back to the feast. Clearly the strength of Jesus 
was unequal to the load; some one must be found to bear his 
burden. Here came a foreigner. Neither by the Jews nor 
Romans were the foreigners held in high esteem. Let him 
bear it. And bear it he did. 

In what spirit did Simon bear the cross? He was indignant, 
no doubt, at the disgrace. He had a right to be. He smarted 
under a sense of injustice. What had he done, a peaceable 
visitor to Jerusalem, that he should be treated as the com- 
panion of a criminal? The reproaches of the Lord came on 
him with the burden, and now and again he was struck by the 
flying missiles that passed over the bent form of Christ. Ah, 
Simon, didst thou but know it, the highest archangel in 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



409 



heaven would count it eternal honor to descend to earth and 
take thy burden on his back! Yet it is reserved for thee to 
be remembered forever as the man who in the hour of his 
dire extremity lightened the Saviour's load! No apostle, no 
future leader of the Church has thy privilege to-day. Not 




CRUCIFIXION — (BOUGUEREAU, 1825 — ) 



Simon Peter but the Cyrenian, a foreigner and a heathen, is 
honored with that sad but glorious privilege. O Simon, do not 
underestimate the honor of this hour! It is thine to minister to 
One who needs, oh, how sadly, human companionship! He 
longed for it last night when he found his disciples sleeping. He 
longed for it as amid the indignities of the trial and the guard- 



4 io JESUS OF NAZARETH 

room, looking from face to face to find one that showed sym- 
pathy. He looks to heaven for it, and the crowd cries, "Let be; 
let us see whether Elijah will come unto him." God will not 
send Elijah, though Elijah would gladly come, but he has sent 
Simon. Be careful, Simon, lest thou esteem as a disgrace the 
crowning honor of thy life! That which at this moment is thy 
shame shall be thy name's patent to immortality! 

There is some reason to think that Simon was impressed 
with the sense of his real service. Whether by the mien of 
the Man of sorrows, his heart was touched like that of the 
penitent seditionist on the cross, or whether he later learned 
for whom he had borne the cross, there is a distinct tradition 
by no means improbable, that Simon became an early convert 
to Christianity. The fact that the evangelists knew him, and 
not only him but his sons, and assumed that their readers, or 
some of them, would know his sons and be interested in the 
fact that it was the father of Rums and Alexander who bore 
the cross, lends no little support to this tradition. Let us 
gladly believe, and we may believe, that Simon did not despise 
his privilege, but counted it an honor that he had borne the 
cross for Jesus. 

Seven times during the six hours of crucifixion, Jesus spoke. 

The first word was at nine o'clock when he prayed for the 
soldiers who nailed him to the tree, "Father, forgive them; 
for they know not what they do" (Luke 2$\ 34). 

The second word from the cross was the answer to the peni- 
tent robber, "Verily I say unto thee. To-day thou shalt be with 
me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). 

The third word, as darkness settled over the city, was that 
of tender care for his mother, "When Jesus therefore saw his 
mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith 
unto his mother, Woman, behold, thy son! Then saith he to 
the disciple, Behold, thy mother!" (John 19: 26, 27.) 

The fourth utterance of Jesus was the cry of agony and 
human suffering, the cry, possibly, of temporary uncertainty 
and doubt, yet of heroic faith in God. "And about the ninth 
hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saving, Eli, Eli, lama 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



411 



sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me?" (Matt. 27: 46.) 

The fifth word from the cross was caused by the fever and 
loss of blood. "I thirst" (John 19: 28). 

The sixth word of Jesus just before he died, was, 4 Tt is fin- 
ished" (John 19: 30). 

The seventh and last word of the Saviour on the cross was, 
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 2y. 46). 

So dragged the leaden hours from nine till three, and Jesus 




THE TOMBS OF THE KINGS — JERUSALEM 



was dead. The priests had their way; the mob triumphed; 
Jesus died upon the cross. But from that day the cross 
became the scepter in the hand of God for the ruling of the 
world by love — the love of God in Christ. 

Jesus had not lacked a voice raised in his behalf. Nico- 
demus had protested — had done his utmost to prevent the 
murderous deed. Now Nicodemus came with Joseph of Ari- 
mathaea, and the precious body of the Son of God, wrapped 
in clean linen, and embalmed in a hundred weight of spices, 
is laid in a new tomb in the garden. 



412 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The Church of trn Holy Sepuchrc has long- been supposed 
to cover the spot of the crucifixion and the tomb of Christ. 
The surroundings are most unsuitable, and the evidence is 
thoroughly unsatisfactory. There is the best of reason to 
believe, and modern discoveries have made it all but certain, 
that the site of the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre at 
the time of the crucifixion was within the walls of Jerusalem. 



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THE ENTOMBMENT — (PERUGINO, I446-I524) 



The evidence is far more favorable to the "New Calvary," 
sometimes, and, most unhappily, known as "Gordon's Cal- 
vary," just north of the Damascus gate. Here at the time 
of my own visit, we held a service one Sunday morning in 
spring, when nature had reproduced the external conditions 
of the time of the crucifixion. It is of this spot, and not that 
covered by the church within the walls, and more deeply cov- 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



413 



ered under superstitions, strifes and unhallowed memories- 
that we shall think as we sing, 

There is a greet?, hill far away, 

Without a city wall; 
Where the dear Lord was crucified. 

Who died to save us all. 




THE STONE OF ANOINTMENT 
IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 



Jesus was dead. The long ripening hostility of the Jews 
had had its triumph in his complete destruction. His follow- 
ers were reduced in number from the noisy, ignorant band who 
cheered his entry into the city, to a handful of Galilean fisher- 
men, and these had fled dismayed to some corner of Jerusalem 
where they hid in terror, and sat in stupid inability to realize 
what had befallen their hopes. With a joy that was too guilty 



414 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



to remain satisfied, and that contained within it the unde- 
fined feeling that in some way their triumph might not last. 
the Jews made fast the door of the sepulchre. "Make it as 
sure as ye can," said Pilate, and they made it fast. The seal 
of Pilate made it secure, and a specially delegated band of sol- 
diery watched through the Sabbath and the night following. 
Well might it be asked, Who shall roll away the stone? 




THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN AT CALVARY 



Who could do it? Who dared do it? The dangerous man who 
for three years had disturbed the peace of Jerusalem was 
behind that stone, dead, and his cause was dead with him. 

It is written in the second Psalm that after wicked men have 
done their worst against God, "He that sitteth in the heavens 
shall laugh." God held in derision all these precautions. 
There is no tomb that can imprison the life of God. 



JESUS AMONG HIS ENEMIES 



415 



Under the brow of the New Calvary toward Jerusalem is 
a garden, and in the garden a tomb. I visited it early on a 
Sunday morning in springtime. Yonder lay the city, its high 
wall standing cold and gray and casting its shadow toward 
us; above rose the green and solemn summit of Calvary; and 
around us the flowers were blooming in beauty. Sudden and 
irresistible was the question that presented itself to our minds, 
Is this the very tomb of Jesus? We do not know the answer; 
it is better that we do not. But the contrast is marked 




THERE IS A GREEN HILL FAR AWAY 



between this and the tomb within the city. There is no super- 
stition here, no unseemly strife, no invention of priests. It 
is a tomb, cold and dark and solemn, and with no tradition 
to give it spurious sanctity. With reverent feet we walked 
away, leaving the hush of the Sunday calm unbroken. But 
the garden and its tomb and the flowers and the sun all com- 
bined to interpret anew the story of the entombment in the 
garden. It is better that no tradition marks the spot, and 
no shrine rises above it: the worshiper may look within the 
tomb and say, "He is not here, but is risen as he saith." 



CHAPTER XLI 



EASTER 

If the gospel story had ended with the crucifixion, the Bible 
would have been the saddest of books. We could not say even 
then that Christ's life had been a failure; no good life wholly 
fails. But we should be left to feel the awful fact that men had 
killed the best friend of humanity, and no act of God restrained 
them or undid their work. The constructive plan of the cen- 
turies would have met destruction in a day. The fearful crime 
of a mob in one brief hour would have stood as the deliberate 
choice of humanity for all the ages, crucifying its King. But 
God knew that that mad act did not represent the world's final 
verdict. Jesus, risen from the dead and manifest to the world, 
shall yet be hailed as King of kings, and Lord of lords. 

The sun emerged that Sunday morning in April from the 
blackest cloud that ever hid the face of heaven. The earth 
had risen from the death of winter, and, clad in its resurrec- 
tion robe of green, greeted the resurrection morning. New 
life, new hope, throbbed in earth and sky, thrilling every bud' 
and blade and blossom with the tidings of the resurrection, 
giving tune to the song of every bird as it caroled of God's 
new life for men. Through all this chorus of beauty, this 
vision of heaven on earth, the women walked sadly to the 
tomb, wondering who would roll away the stone. They were 
seeking the body of the dead Christ. But, O Mary of Mag- 
dala, groping thy way to the sepulchre in the shadows of a 
strange city, bearing spices to anoint the Lord's body, the 
other Mary who anointed him while living, has done thy work 
for thee; and God will anoint him this morning with the oil of 
coronation, declaring him to be the Son of God with power 
by the resurrection of the dead! O ye devoted women, the 

416 



EASTER 



417 



last to leave his pierced body, and the first to seek it, take 
back your spices and balm; for God has this day a balm for 
heavy hearts in all ages to come. Nor ask wonderingly who 
shall roll away the stone, nor regret too late that ye did not 
waken Peter from his heavy slumber; a message more glad 




EASTER MORNING — (bOUGUEREAU, 1825 — ) 



shall waken him and the world, and a heavy stone shall be 
rolled this day from the tomb of sorrow and despair! Hasten, 
O ye faithful women, for the sun is about to rise! Be there ere 
the day break and the shadows flee away; yet before you arrive 
at the tomb, the Sun of righteousness will have risen on the 
hearts of men with healing in his wings. Here is the garden, 



4i8 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



and yonder is the tomb; but the stone is rolled away, and light 
breaks from the dark recesses of the cave. Hasten, and tell 
his disciples and the world! Run, for never messengers bore 
to men such tidings! Wake and hear it, ye sorrowing disciples; 
wake and answer it. with your flowers and songs, O earth of 
the Easter sunrise! He is risen! He is risen! 

The resurrection story was no forethought of the disciples. 
They were not anticipating it. It was no clever ruse on their 
part, nor was it a delusion born of their hope. They had no 
hope to give birth to such a dream; no courage to proclaim 




MARY AT THE SEPULCHRE — (e. BURNE-JONES) 



it; no motive to originate a fraud for the sake of dying for it. 

Nor was the resurrection story an afterthought of the disci- 
ples. The story did not originate years afterward in another 
place. It sprang into being at the mouth of that empty sepul- 
chre whose door stood removed, allowing all in search of evi- 
dence to peer into the dark void beyond. The resurrection 
story is no myth. The stone was rolled away — the women did 
not move it. If they could have moved the stone they could 
not have moved the world as the risen Christ has done. 

There are times when love is a safer guide than cold intellect. 
There are things that are better understood by the heart of 



EASTER 



419 



affection than the brain of reason. True, every proposition of 
revelation must be tested by reason. Reach out thy finger, 
Reason, and put it into the nail prints in the hand of historic 
Truth. Stretch forth thy hand, Reason, and place it in the side 
of revealed Verity. But there are chasms which Reason can- 
not leap, on the other side of which Faith stands with sure 
footing. For He who made our hearts with these hopes, has 
appointed also our destiny, whatever it may be, and if he be 




he is risen! — (tojetti, 1849 — ) 



good, he has not made our hopes to mock us. Human faith 
in immortality is too serious a matter for even God to trifle 
with. The human soul has rights not of its own choosing, but 
rights that belong to its very being. Reverently let us say 
that the soul has rights which even its Creator is bound by 
the laws of his own being, by his obligation to his own virtue, 
to respect. Reason tells us this. But reason has for its data 
facts other than those which inhere in reason. It has our 



420 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



hopes, our affections. Peter and James and John reason the 
matter out, and so far as they are able to reach a conclusion, 
see no ground for hope. Neither does Mary see ground for 
hope, but the love that brings her to the tomb to weep and to 
anoint her Lord's body, proves a safer guide than the mere 
reason that sits in the shadow of its sorrow and waits in stupid 
silence. Reason thinks of the mob, the whip, the cross, and 
sees the stone at the door. Faith sees behind the stone an 
opportunity for love still further to manifest itself, and going 
to the tomb it meets the Lord in the garden. The man who 




PETER AND JOHN RUNNING TO THE SEPULCHRE — (EUGENE BURNAUD) 

smiles complacently at the faith of his wife, the affection which 
seems so inferior to his clear syllogisms, may not himself have 
so safe a guide. 

I do not decry reason. God's appeal is to the reason of men. 
If ancient history has any fact better proved by testimony 
than the resurrection of Christ, let Reason speak. Here 
Faith challenges Reason to do its best, or worst. We can af- 
ford to feel her cold finger probing the tender flesh where the 
nails made their awful rent, but we cannot afford to be 
deceived about it. Rut we need more than reason. Even rea- 



EASTER 



421 



son has its limitations. Reason cannot prove as a universal 
truth that a straight line is the shortest possible distance 
between two points. No process of reasoning will prove that 
forever and ever two and two must be four. The things that 
we most certainly know are the things that we cannot prove. 
We cannot prove our own existence. We cannot prove that 
the world was created before yesterday. We cannot prove that 




THE WALK TO EMMAUS — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



the whole is greater than any of its parts. But these things, 
which reason cannot prove, reason accepts as fundamental 
truths. In all reasoning concerning God and our relations to 
him, the affections and hopes of men are material for sound 
logic. Reason must not exclude such evidence. Why did God 
give us these hopes, he being good, if not to ratify them? why 
this affection which death does not end, if death must at last 
end all? 



422 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

He who trusts in God and believes in the gospel of the risen 
Christ, has a firm footing for his faith. He stands on historic 
truth. He stands on the supreme manifestation of the power 
of God exhibited for human redemption. He stands secure 
on the rock of firm reason. He stands on the hopes that are 
God-given and universal. He who suffered under Pontius 
Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, rose from the dead the 
third day and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father 
Almighty. Faith can have no surer footing than this central, 
sublime truth. 

The news of the resurrection spread, but found the disciples 
everywhere incredulous. Peter and John ran quickly to the 
sepulchre, and found it empty. 

That afternoon two of the disciples were walking to 
Emmaus when Jesus appeared, and walked with them. What 
would we not give for a full record of that conversation that 
caused their hearts to burn within them! They came to their 
stopping-place and invited him in. They sat at meat and the 
guest became host, and as he lifted his eyes to heaven to bless 
the humble meal, they knew their Lord. 

We are not certain of the site of Emmaus. The name is 
preserved in Amwas, a village twenty miles from Jerusalem 
toward Jaffa. The village of Kulonia, which is commonly 
shown as Emmaus, is as much too near as Amwas is too far 
removed. The village of Kubebeh is about the right distance, 
which Luke gives as three-score furlongs, or seven and a half 
miles, but the tradition in its favor goes back only to the 
fifteenth century. All these are west or northwest of Jeru- 
salem, in which direction Emmaus has been assumed to lie. 
Luke says nothing about the direction; and unless we accept 
the reading in the Sinaitic manuscript, of 160 stadia instead of 
60, in which case Amwas would be the place, we must abandon 
all of these. Twenty miles would have been a long walk to 
begin in the afternoon, and the two disciples, starting back 
at sunset, would hardly have expected to find the disciples in 
Jerusalem assembled on their return. The explorations of 
Colonel Courier resulted in the discovery of a more probable 



EASTER 423 

site, southwest, and in the general region of Bethlehem. The 
modern name is Khamasa, which is a possible corruption of 
Emmaus. It would be interesting to know that Jesus on this 
day of his resurrection walked, with feet wounded, but no 
longer weary, over the same road along which Mary carried 
him in her arms as a little child. Risen from the dead, he left 
the bloody city behind him, and walked in the afternoon of 
that spring Sunday toward the place of his birth. So far as 
we know, Jesus had never trodden the road in all the more 
than thirty years since then. Somewhere on the way back the 













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KUBEBEH, THE EMMAUS OF THE CRUSADERS 

disciples passed Jesus, for he left Emmaus before them, and 
arrived in Jerusalem after them. It is no wonder that they 
did not see him, for they were in haste, and it was getting 
dark, and Jesus wished to be hidden from them. Somewhere 
on the way he paused and let them go by. I wonder if he 
withdrew a little from the road at its fork near Rachel's tomb, 
and while they hurried by, intent on telling what they had 
just seen and heard, he rested and meditated by the way. The 
lights were appearing in Bethlehem, in plain sight yonder 
on the hill; and the lights were appearing in heaven above it. 



424 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

I wonder if he did not sit for a half hour and think of the time 
when the bright star stood at rest above his cradle there, and 
of the many, wonderful things that had happened in the more 
than thirty intervening years. Then he had come, a helpless 
infant, through the gates of birth, into the humble life of a 
peasant home; now he had emerged in glory through the 
broken gates of death, and walked among men in deathless 
power. With the two disciples he walked this road to where 
it forked and led to the right at Rachel's tomb, but the con- 
versation on the way was with the disciples, whose hearts were 
burning within them, and he was absorbed in their eager quest 
of truth as he gave it to them. But when he returned to 
Jerusalem, alone, and in the later hours of the same night, did 
he not pause in sight of Bethlehem, all silent under the 
heavens, and think of the night when the star of Bethlehem 
rained down its light upon the manger where he was born? 
The years had not been many, but within that third of a cen- 
tury a work had been accomplished which all the centuries to 
come can only make the more wonderful and full of glory. 

The two disciples did not stop to look at Bethlehem, or at 
anything else. They rose up "that same hour" and returned 
to Jerusalem. Evidently they had left the city quite early in 
the afternoon, before the news of the resurrection had been 
supplemented by the personal testimony of those who had seen 
Jesus. All that they had heard was that the women had seen 
a vision of angels saying that Jesus was alive, and that the 
men who had visited the tomb had found it empty, "but him 
they saw not." So far as they knew, they themselves were 
the only ones who had really seen Jesus; and their visit with 
him confirmed the reports of the morning, which had rather 
bewildered than comforted them. They forgot the fatigue 
of their outward walk and the lateness of the hour, though 
still it was only "toward evening, and the day far spent." The 
joy of the message they were bearing gave swiftness to their 
feet. In breathless haste and with bounding hearts they made 
their way to the city, where they found the disciples assem- 
bled. But their message was met with one no less eagerly 



EASTER 



425 



told, and no less glad; the Lord had risen, indeed, and had 
appeared to Simon. So they gladdened each others' hearts 
with the double assurance that the Lord had really been seen 
alive, and when their gladness seemed almost complete, yet 
shrouded in wonder and chastened by the memory of their 
great sorrow, Jesus himself came among them, and spoke his 
word of peace. 

A week later he came again, and Thomas, who had 
been absent the first time, was there. I have always been glad 




CHRIST AT EMMAUS — (PAUL VERONESE, I528-I588) 

that Thomas doubted; it saves the necessity of our doubting. 
Thomas was there as the representative of modern critical 
thought; he would be no party to the publication of a story 
that might be unfounded; he would know the veritable truth. 
He carried his doubt too far for his own good, but not too 
far for ours. And when he knew the truth, he believed and 
was steadfast. 

One mighty and all-inclusive truth inspired the early Church 
with unflagging courage and unwavering: faith in its appar- 
ently hopeless task of conquering the world. Upon it hung 



42 6 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

the apostles' hope of success in this life and of reward in the 
life to come. Upon it hung their faith in the divinity of Christ. 
They believed in the miraculous birth of Christ, but they hung 
no argument upon it, and we never find Jesus referring to it. 
When he was asked to give a sign of his divinity, he gave the 
restoration of the temple of his body after a three days' 
destruction. The apostles, likewise, when giving their view 
of the divinity of Christ, tell us that he was declared to be the 
Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. 
It was Christ risen that raised from the dead the hope of the 
disciples. It was Christ risen that convinced Thomas. It was 
Christ risen that conquered Paul, and transformed the malig- 
nant persecutor into the serene martyr. It was Christ risen 
that dismayed the watch at the sepulchre. It was Christ risen 
that smote the conscience of Jerusalem and brought about the 
revival at Pentecost. It was the risen Christ that was preached 
by the early missionaries. It was the vision of the risen Christ 
at the right hand of God that cheered the dying Stephen. It 
is the presence of the risen Christ that makes intelligible what 
else would be the mystery of the conduct of the unlearned and 
none too courageous disciples when their behavior following 
the resurrection is contrasted with that which preceded that 
event. They had seen their Lord alive, and knew of his resur- 
rection, and this gave new significance to all his previous life. 
We, like them, rest our faith upon the resurrection of Jesus 
from the dead, and the work of his Spirit since manifest in the 
world. 

The resurrection of Christ is a great historic fact; and it is 
not an isolated fact. From it as from a fountain have sprung 
streams of influence which did not break from the earth 
uncaused. When, a few days after the Jews had put Jesus to 
death, his disciples appeared, not in Galilee to start a rumor 
among the ignorant fisherfolk about the Sea of Tiberias, but 
in Jerusalem, and confronting the very men who had slain 
Jesus, accused them of crucifying the Son of God, and at the 
same time affirmed that Jesus had risen from the dead, there 
was a very simple way of answering them, if Jesus was still 



EASTER 



427 



in the grave; it was simply to open the sepulchre in the sight 
of all Jerusalem and the disciples, and exhibit the decaying 
body that had been laid there a few days before. There would 
have been no difficulty about identifying it and the exhibition 
would have been conclusive evidence that he had been unable to 
fulfil his prophecy of rising from the dead, and that the disciples 




'LORD, i believe: help thou mine unbelief! 
(c. schonherr) 



were imposing upon the people a falsehood when they asserted 
that he was alive. When Peter arose and quoted the words of 
the Psalm, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither 
wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption," he asked., 
"Was this spoken of David?" and answered, "Surely not, for 



428 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



David's seculphre is with us to this day." Why did they not 
say, "So is the sepulchre of Jesus?" Why did they tremble 
when Peter talked of that empty tomb? Why did they, among 
them large numbers of priests and prominent men of Jerusa- 
lem, unite with the Church by thousands? If the grave was 




JESUS AT EMMAUS — (REMBRANDT, 1607-1669) 

not really empty, then the conduct of those men, Jews as well 
as Christians, conforms to no such laws governing human con- 
duct as those with which we are familiar. If we are able to 
explain hitman conduct, we make the history of those days, 
and of all days since, an enigma, except as we understand the 



EASTER 



429 



meaning of that empty tomb. We may accept, if we are will- 
ing to rest upon a superficial explanation, the suggestion of 
Renan that Mary Magdalene's half-crazed brain evoked the 
vision of the risen Christ. But what about Peter? And what 
about Thomas? And what about Paul? And what about the 
five hundred others? And what about Jerusalem, which when 




'peace be unto you" — (kusthardt) 



confronted by the empty tomb held its peace for want of 
explanation? 

The supreme proof of the resurrection of Jesus is the resur- 
rection of Christianity. The hope of the world lay dead in 
that tomb. It came to new life in him, and lives immortal in 
the life of the world and the hope of heaven. 



CHAPTER XLII 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 

The Lord had risen, and the disciples had seen him, some 
of them in the garden in the morning, two of them as they 
walked to Emmaus in the twilight, and ten of them as they sat 
in the upper room. The next Sunday evening he appeared to 
them again, and Thomas was with them then, and thank God, 
thenceforth. Then certain days went by, either there or in 
Galilee, and the Lord came not. How long they waited we 
do not know, but it was probably near the end of the forty 
days when he appeared to them beside the Sea of Galilee. 
There is an interval of some three weeks, apparently, between 
the Jerusalem appearances and the two in Galilee. What were 
the disciples doing and thinking? At some time in the inter- 
val they left Jerusalem. The city became intolerable. They 
were strangers there, countrymen, oppressed by the crowds, 
as the lonely man in a crowd. 

Jerusalem! The city where the Lord was crucified! The 
city of an apostate religion, of a corrupt hierarchy, of a sub- 
orned high court, of a justice maladministered — the very 
name grew to be hateful to them. John got to calling it 
"Sodom," and sometimes modified it to "Egypt." What 
Peter called it, we are not told, unless indeed his much dis- 
puted "Babylon" may have been an allusion to it. Jerusalem! 
The city where they stared you out of countenance, and lis- 
tened to your speech to hear if you were from Galilee, and 
counted themselves the chosen of the t Lord because of the 
temple whose courts they desecrated with their hypocrisy — let 



*This chapter contains matter abridged from mv little book "I Go 
A-Fishing." 

430 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 



43 1 



us away from it, to where we can breathe! So they may have 
said, or felt. 

And so they went back to Galilee. Our Lord had told them 
to go, and that he would meet them there. Did they go 
because of his command, and were they expecting to meet 
him? Perhaps so, but three weeks seems long to wait, and 
when they met the Lord at length, they were not looking for 




SERVICE OF AMERICAN PILGRIMS 
ON MOUNT CALVARY 



him. But Capernaum cannot have been a comfortable place 
for the disciples. Everybody knew everybody's business there 
and felt free to ask questions. In Jerusalem they had at least 
the grace of minding their own business; but in Caper- 
naum every one was full of curious inquiries. What had 
become of Jesus? What did they think of him now? Did they 
really credit those silly stories about his resurrection? If he 



432 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

had risen, where was he? What did they intend to do now? 
Such questions must have met them on every hand in the 
little fishing tOAvn. Bethsaida was no better, as John and 
James soon learned; Nathansel found his own Cana intoler- 
able; and so they got together, seven of them — and Thomas 
was among them! — resolved to remain together. 

The weary days dragged by. There was nothing stirring 
save the sailing of the little fleet each day, and its looked-for 
return at night or morning afterward, and the gossip about 
the size of this or that man's catch and the conjectures about 
the weather, and the everlasting meddlesome village chit-chat 
that spared no man's character and stopped at no woman's 
threshold. 

The return of the disciples was a nine days' wonder, no 
doubt, but even that subject wore out after a while, and the 
seven lonely, inactive men were left to themselves. There 
came a time when even an impertinent question would have 
been a relief, and even a curious stare would have been better 
than indifference. And all within three weeks! 

The place was all so strange to the disciples, yet so familiar, 
too. Astonishingly familiar, and so little changed! They had 
lived so much in the last two years, a century could hardly 
have measured the distance they had gone from their old lives, 
and yet it was not so far! 

They wondered that their old friends had not grown older — 
they did not seem changed. No one had changed but them- 
selves. Why, a month ago it had seemed impossible for the 
sun to rise again after the awful cloud hid it on Calvary; but 
it had risen, and life had gone on, and even that midday dark- 
ness was half forgotten already. These events that had burned 
their image into their own souls — what had these been to 
other men? Aye, were they not growing a little dim in their 
own souls? Could they have been mistaken about it? What if 
the Lord should not come again? What if they had come on 
a fool's errand, and were waiting for something that was not 
to come? What if — did they sometimes ask it? — what if they 
had been mistaken in thinking that it was the Lord they saw? 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 



433 



And here they were back in Capernaum, and the three weeks 
seemed to draw a veil over it all. It seemed so remote — and 
fishing grew more real. 

I wonder how it came about — how they had been spending 
the intervening Sabbaths and Sundays. The Sabbaths, no 




JOHN AND THE MOTHER OF JESUS — (DOBSON) 



doubt, they had spent in the little synagogue with the village 
worshipers, but no one else felt what they felt of yearning and 
soul hunger in that place where the Lord had spoken and 
wrought his blessed works. Still, they had something in com- 
mon there with the life of other Jews, and the Sabbaths were 



434 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

not the hardest days. The hardest days may have been the 
Sundays. For each Sabbath they were saying, "To-morrow 
our Lord may come to us again," and they shut themselves 
up in Peter's house where the Lord had been with them so 
often, and waited and prayed. The day drew to a close — 
he did not come. "But," they said, "it was evening when he 
came before," so they waited far into the night till they grew 
weary with watching and the lamp burned low, and one by 
one they went to sleep. 

Thus passed one Sunday, and the next, and still another. 
Three Sabbaths of quickened anticipation, three Sundays of 
watching and prayer, three nights of weary waiting, three 
weeks of disappointment. Perhaps it came about just after 
one of those Sundays. The rest of the village had worked, 
of course, that day, having rested on the Sabbath, like honest 
Jews. They had washed their nets on Sunday morning, and 
put off that evening just as the sun went down, and now were 
coming in, perhaps, with boat-loads of fish, as the disciples, red- 
eyed and haggard, came forth from their vigil and bathed tlieir 
weary faces in the cool waters of the lake. In came Peter's 
boat with the rest and the man to whom Peter had loaned it 
brought it in shore and gathered his catch and carried it to 
market. Peter felt his soul rising within him, and- he walked 
quickly up to his old friend and said, "I'll use that boat myself 
to-night, if you please," and the man gave it up with reluctance 
and surprise; he had come to think he owned it. Then Peter 
walked home with a brisk step and reported. "I go a-fishing!" 
he exclaimed, and with eager voice they cried, "We also go 
with thee." 

They needed the change, poor fellows, and they needed the 
exercise. Such souls were not made for inactivity. Moreover, 
they needed the money. Judas had kept the bag and its con- 
tents, and they had been living in the city, and Capernaum 
was not minded to board seven strong fellows for nothing. 
Yes, it was time for them to do something. It was well for 
them to go a-fishing. That day new impulse came into their 
lives, a healthy, normal reaction from enforced idleness. But 
reactions have their perils. 



1 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 



435 



Oh, the joy of that voyage, with sails all set, and every reef 
shaken out! How Peter's eye brightened as he headed a point 
nearer the wind, and found that his strong- right hand on the 
tiller had not lost its cunning! How they almost shouted for 
joy as the white spray flew over the bow and smote them with 
saucy hilarity in the face! Oh, the blue of the sky above, and 




THE CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION 



the blue of the wave beneath! and the glory of the sunset, 
and the solemn quiet of the twilight, when heaven draws 
nearer the hearts of men than during the busy day! 

And Peter rejoiced. Out from the din and strife of the city, 
out from the gossip and impertinence of the village, out under 
the dome of the blue sky, and on the exultant breast of the 
blue lake. O Peter, I rejoice with you, and tremble for you! 



43 6 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

There was much to remind Peter of other experiences in 
that vessel. In the bow of that same boat the Lord had :.at 
and preached to the multitude on the shore. Here in the stern 
he had lain asleep in the storm, and there on the narrow deck 
he had stood and rebuked the wind. What manner of man 
was this, that even the wind and the sea obeyed him? Men 
differed in their opinions; Peter had spoken his own fearlessly, 
heartily, but this was oh, so long ago, and so much had hap- 
pened since then! 

Then they set to work at the fishing, and at first they 
worked so eagerly, so nervously, they had no luck. It would 
go better soon, perhaps, they said, and what were Peter's 
visions of a great catch, a re-established business, an announce- 
ment through such trade channels as Capernaum boasted, that 
he was to be found at the old stand, and six hale, able fellows 
with him in the syndicate! 

Peter was his own master to-day. It was such a change 
from yesterday and last year! Oh, the joy of freedom! Oh, 
the pleasure of getting away from men! After all, why had 
they ever deluded themselves? What was all this thought of 
a kingdom in which they should hold high place? The king- 
dom had not come; it was not coming. Down deep in his soul 
did Peter half say this? I sometimes fear that if Peter and his 
friends had met success when they first began to fish that 
night, had sailed home in the early dusk, had marketed their 
wares, had made their eager plans for the next night, and gone 
to sleep, had slept as men sleep who have fished and caught 
and hope to fish again, they might not have seen the Lord. 

Along the shore in the early morning wandered a solitary 
figure. Slowly he walked and with something of sadness, yet 
there was in the virile step something of the stride of the con- 
queror. Now he looked out over the black waters where no 
other eye could discern an object, and seemed to rest his gaze 
on something far out on the wave. Then he turned to the 
shore and looked from one to another of the few little fishing 
cabins in sight, till he found one that had a light. It still 
lacked something of early dawn, but a fisher's wife had risen. 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 



437 



and was preparing her husband's breakfast against his setting 
out for early fishing, or his return from a night's labor. 
Thither, perhaps, the wanderer bent his steps, and stood at 
the door and knocked. An early knock with a request for fire 
was nothing unusual, and this was what he asked — a brand, 
and it was given, no doubt willingly. We need not force into 
the narrative any greater miracle than that of the world-wide 
humanity, from which springs a readiness to bestow, whenever 
asked, the common needs that cost least and count for most. 




THE SUMMIT OF THE MOUNT OF OLIVES FROM BETHPHAGE 



A loaf and a fish were not great things to ask or receive, and 
these he either obtained for the asking or had brought with 
him from some other home. Perhaps some fisher and his wife 
that morning ate their own morsel with greater content 
because they had shared it with a stranger; perhaps the fire on 
their own hearth gleamed the brighter because they had given 
him a coal. 

Down by the shore the Master stood, and swung his brand 
till the end grew red. Then he gathered driftwood from the 



438 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

shore and laid across, the slivers first and then the sticks, and 
blew the coal into flame. With the same breath he had fanned 
into feeble flame the faith of the disciples in the upper room, 
saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." In all the record of the 
gospels there is no more beautiful, touching, impressive pic- 
ture than that of the risen Lord sheltering that flame with 
the hands that had been nailed to the cross. In the glory of 
the complete sacrifice he who had tasted death for every 
man, still ministering and not ministered unto, counted it not 
beneath him to stoop above the fire and cook his disciples' 
breakfast. 

"The disciples knew not that it was Jesus," but they saw 
the light, and made slowly for it. Even so, I sometimes dare 
to hope, steer many men to-day, toward a light they cannot 
choose but see, on a shore toward which they would but sail, 
but alas, they are so busy with their fishing! O fishers of 
fish, of dry goods, of merchandise, of stocks and bonds, watch 
the shore as well as the sea! Yonder stands the Master! O 
ye fishers of fish, of bank accounts and worldly honor, ye men 
of business and of care, pass not too heedlessly the light and 
the voice on the shore! It is your risen Lord who calls to you! 

There is no fact harder to understand as we read the stories 
of the resurrection than the repeated instances in which the 
disciples failed to recognize the Lord. We might think that 
the failure to identify him resulted from some change in him- 
self; but we are quite familiar with analogous experiences. 
Certainly, for that night, they had forgotten to look for him. 
Was it because hitherto he had come to them on Sunday? 
Did they think it out of character for him to come to them 
while fishing? If so their error has its modern representatives. 
There are quite too many people who look for the Lord on 
Sunday only, and in worship to the exclusion of work. In one 
of the newly discovered "Sayings of our Lord," is one at least 
whose genuineness I should like to see established, "Raise the 
stone, and thou shalt find me: cleave the wood, and there am 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 



439 



I." "Where two or three are met together" in worship or in 
work in his Spirit, there is he. 

If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor. 

The disciples who had waited in vain all the long - Sabbath 
for him discovered him while fishing. 




THE ASCENSION — (BIERMANN) 

When Peter knew the Lord, he leaped in and swam ashore, 
and the rest followed more slowly. Then Peter turned back 
and pulled the net ashore, and began to count the fish. There 
was a little delay, for, while the Lord had breakfast ready, there 
was not enough for eight, and they had to prepare some of the 
newly caught fish. Then they had breakfast; but Peter, who 
had been so eager to get ashore, was constrained and ill at ease 



440 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

with the rest, and sat in his wet clothes counting the fish. 
John kept tally on the count. There were a hundred and fifty- 
three. It was a famous catch. But Jesus interrupted Peter's 
count by asking, "Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more 
than these?" There are learned discussions about the two 
words used for love, and others about the comparison "more 
than these." More than what? 

I think — and a few people agree with this interpretation — 
that what our Lord meant was, "Lovest thou me more than 
thou lovest these fish?" 

The ready objection to this view is, that it cheapens the 
whole conversation to compare the love of Peter for Christ 
to his love for a boat-load of fish. Fish seem very paltry to 
us after several centuries. It is easy for us to set a low valua- 
tion upon Peter's fish. 

But those fish were Peter's stock in trade. They represented 
his cash investment in his new enterprise, his hopes of a liveli- 
hood, his love of freedom — all these. If he remained a fisher- 
man he might gird himself and go where he liked; if he loved 
Christ "more than these," another would gird him and lead 
him whither he would not. 

Once Peter could have answered the question instantly and 
without reservation, but he knew better now what "more than 
these" meant. He had learned the lesson of the cross. To 
leave all and follow Christ meant no kingdom, no seat at the 
right hand of an earthly prince — all the visions had faded which 
possessed his mind when he first left all to follow Christ. Back 
of the question waited an ominous hint that by his death he 
was to glorify God. This was very different from Peter's 
thought when he first became a follower of the Master, and 
he thought of the fish again and yet again before his answer 
implied all that Jesus meant in the question. 

Ah, those fish — a hundred and fifty-three fine speckled beau- 
ties! Peter had already roughly calculated their value in 
Capernaum. He could hardly keep his eyes off them while the 
Lord was talking. 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 441 

Peter loved Jesus, and said so, but he did not say, "more 
than these." The second time Jesus dropped the comparison, 
and the third time he used Peter's word for love. The two 
found common ground at length in Peter's understanding that 
truly to love Christ at all, and love him as Christ, he must 
love him more than all else. Peter was grieved because the 
Lord asked him three times; the Lord was grieved, perhaps, 
because it was necessary to ask him so often. 

It is not necessary to prove that the fish were stale. It is 
not necessary to prove all things evil per se which we must 
give up for Christ's sake. The fish were doubtless very good 
fish, but they were only fish, and our fish are small and poor 
in comparison of what should be our love for him. Lovest 
thou thy Lord more than these? 

Peter realized at last that to love Jesus more than he loved 
his business and his plans in life precluded his ever being a 
fisherman again. Not even to be a fisher of men was he now 
called, but to shepherd the Lord's lambs and tend his sheep. 

Again Jesus turned to Peter and said, "Follow me." He had 
said it before, but it meant far more now. Peter was not 
happy in his distinction. To follow Christ meant the cross, 
perhaps, a cross certainly. Was he the only one to bear a 
cross? He turned to John and asked, "What shall this man 
do?" and Jesus seemed to all who heard to say that John, 
unlike Peter, was to "tarry till I come." Not to live forever, 
as John explains, but to "tarry till I come." This is not the 
place to discuss the question whether John lived to see any 
"coming of the Lord" which Peter's earlier death prevented. 
Certainly it must have meant something by a distinction which 
must inevitably be misunderstood unless by it he intended a 
promise. It is next to impossible that he chose a method so 
cumbrous and so liable, so certain, to be misunderstood, if all 
he meant was that Peter was to attend to his own business. 
The disciples understod it as a promise to John, and a warn- 
ing to Peter, and Peter lived in anticipation of glorifying God 
by his death. There in the sunrise of that May morning by 
the lake, Peter discovered in the face of the risen Christ the 



44 2 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

true glory of a life of service. John lived to serve him long 
after Peter was dead; but Peter followed Christ, as of old he 
had promised, "to prison and to death." 

A few days later our Lord met his disciples in Jerusalem. 
What he said is not recorded; but his message can hardly have 
been other than the last words given them in Galilee, "Go 
ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching- 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; 
and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" 
(Matt. 28; 19, 20). That promise he has fulfilled in his abiding 
presence in the life of men — and he abides the greatest living 
power for good in human life. 

Having given his last message to his disciples, our Lord led 
them out again away from Jerusalem, past Calvary, past Geth- 
semane, and up on the top of the Mount of Olives until Beth- 
any lay below them and Jerusalem was in the distance. Then 
he lifted his hands and blessed them, and while he blessed 
them, he was carried into heaven. 

I saw a beautiful sight one day as I journeyed from Jeru- 
salem to the Jordan. It was raining in Jerusalem and west- 
ward over the sea, but the sun was shining in the wilderness 
and far beyond Jordan. As we passed Bethany the rain grew 
lighter, and after a mile or two we traveled over dry roads, 
the sun shining clear before us, while the dense clouds black- 
ened the west. 

Soon the rainbow became visible — there is always a rainbow 
at the edge of the storm — and grew brighter as we came more 
into the sunshine. Our road wound down the mountain, mak- 
ing curve below curve, each time taking us into the shadow, 
each time bringing us into brighter sunshine, and the 
bow above brightened and doubled and trebled. There 
it was, a clear, triple rainbow, and it hung above the Mount 
of Olives, encircling the spot where Jesus last stood before 
he ascended to the Father, the more really to be with us 
always. A score of others saw it, my companions in the 
journey, and to each one it was the symbol of glorious hope. 



THE FORTY DAYS AND THE FUTURE 443 

Not Olivet only, where last his feet pressed the soil of earth, 
but the whole world is under that triple arch of faith, hope 
and love. Above the world, forever glorified by the human 
footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, rises in triple splendor that 
arch whose keystone is in heaven, and whose pillars are the 
sure promises of God. 




he is risen! — (ender, 1793-1854) 




Copyright 1903 by Frank Wood 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



PART II 

THE CHRIST OF ART 



JESUS OF NAZARETH AS ART REVEALS HIM 



I— ART AND LITERATURE 

In some of their aspects the treatment of religious themes 
in art and in literature is fairly parallel; and so far forth the 
paintings of any period in church history have their best inter- 
pretation in the literature of the time. But there have been 
ages in which the brush was active and the pen was idle, save 
as it made a few copies of old parchments; the houses of the 
people were bare of books, but the walls of the churches were 
hung high with paintings, and decorated with religious fres- 
coes. On the other hand, the Puritan movement affords an 
illustration of an epoch rich in literature, but until the present 
almost barren of art. 

Literature is more diversified than painting. It embraces 
philosophy and poetry, science and speculation, archaeology 
and metaphysics. Whatever of conviction or emotion, of 
logical certainty or of vague wonder, can be expressed in words 
can also be reduced to writing, and thus become literature. 
Art, however, is compassed about by limitations. It can 
express only so much as it can embody in some rigid form, 
paint on a flat surface, or carve out of stone. It has neither 
speech nor motion. As compared with literature it is in fetters. 
As between art and literature, literature is incomparably the 
greater. The Bible is literature, and, excepting the poetry of 
the Psalms and the prophets, is literature whose charm and 
convincing power are chiefly in the artlessness and simplicity 
of the narrative. There were ages in which the Bible of the 
people was largely the pictures on the walls of the churches; 



446 



TESUS OF NAZARETH 



and those ages illustrate the sad limitations of art. The record 
of the life on earth of the Son of God is preserved for us in a 
book, and a book without contemporary illustrations. 

Art has some advantages over literature, as well as limita- 
tions. Some of the limitations are themselves advantages 
Art may be reverently wise above what is written. It repro- 




THE ANNUNCIATION — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 



duces the carpenter shop of Joseph, and creates a form which 
takes its place in the imagination of the Church as his; it enters 
the chamber of the Virgin, and stands alone with her and the 
angel at the annunciation: it halts not because the creeds of 
the Church have no consistent doctrine of angels, but paints 
a sky full of them, singing above the manger of Bethlehem; it 
gathers out of oblivion the unrecorded details of the flight 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 447 

into Egypt; it fasts with Christ in the wilderness; it watches 
with him in the garden while the disciples sleep; it enters the 
tomb with him; it is with him in the resurrection; it parts the 
very clouds for him to ascend into heaven. 

All this art does reverently, beautifully, helpfully; much of 
this literature can do clumsily, if at all. Literature ever insists 




MADONNA AND CHILD (mURILLO, 1617-1682) 

on thrusting its pen, if not its finger, into the historic nail 
prints; but Art says, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay," 
and we forget to begin our awe-struck and reverent inspection 
with a "Credo." Therein is art the freer, and so far forth the 
truer, interpreter of popular thought. 

Art has another advantage, and this in its limitation. It 
can never make its hero an abstraction. Literature is able to 

3 



448 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



dwell upon a given attribute till its character ceases to be a 
living man, and becomes a quality. But art cannot do so, and 
if it could it dare not. If it paints Christ at all, it must make 
him more than an elusive dogma. It must put him into the 
picture, bodily and visibly; it cannot conceal him, but must 




the flight into egypt 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 



reveal him, face and figure. It dare not put him into the back- 
ground, nor hide him in the shadows of theological specula- 
tion. It may not be able to tell the whole story about him, 
but it must try; it can never paint a radiant glow between the 
overshadowing cherubim, and say, "This is the Christ." The 
Christ of art is the Word made flesh; and the flesh must be 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



449 



real and human, whatever the mystery of the soul within. If 
art uses symbols, it must be as symbols, and not as syllogisms. 
The influence of Christ upon art has been profound. It has 
touched all the arts, and given new life to some of them. 
Architecture, perfected in the heathen temples of antiquity, 
but decadent in the nations of Mediaeval Europe, revived and 
found fresh life in the cathedrals and churches of Christendom. 
The almost simultaneous appearance of the Gothic in all the 




resting on the way to egypt 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 

Christianized nations of Europe gave to architecture a new 
birth, and dedicated the art which had ever been a religious 
one, to the service of the Church. Sculpture, too, has received 
its impulse from Christianity. If Protestantism feels the influ- 
ence of sculpture but little in the religious life of the people, 
it is still a power in the Roman Catholic world, where shrines 
abound along the wayside and statues inhabit the recesses of 
cathedrals. Music and poetry belong pre-eminently to the 
Church. Hers are the psalm and the hymn, the anthem and 

5 



45 o JESUS OF NAZARETH 

the oratorio; hers are the organ and the choir and the^ swelling 
volume of praise from the great congregation. All these arts, 
architecture, sculpture, music, and poetry, have received 
strong impulse from the Church. 

In painting, however, we find pre-eminently the material 
for a revelation of popular thought of the person of Christ. 




the holy family 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 

Here are form and color, repose and action, historical or 
geographical background, and surroundings of contemporary 
life. 

Painting has been profoundly influenced by Christianity; and, 
as in all the arts, the influence has been mutual, for art has 
effected a reciprocal influence upon popular Christianity. 

6 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



451 



Painting gives us a revelation of the popular thought of the 
Christ; it also gives to popular thought a formative tendency, 
and shapes the current feeling which the painter, usually sensi- 
tive to the influences of his environment, and often prophetic, 
reduces to canvas in a glorified form. He does more than add 
to the face or figure of the Master a background of contem- 




joseph and the infant tesus 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 

porary or ancient life; he interprets more or less accurately 
the Christ who lives in the imagination and the spiritual con- 
sciousness of his contemporaries. A popular painting is there- 
fore both an interpretation and a record. 

The present generation has witnessed, to a surprising 
degree, the popularization of art. Art, which was once for the 
few, has become the possession of the many. The average 

7 



452 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

home of to-day has not merely more pictures than the home of 
forty years ago, but pictures of vastly better quality. 

The new movement began with the now despised chromo. 
Paintings that appealed to popular fancy were reproduced by 
lithography, and sold from door to door, or given as premiums 




joseph and the child jesus 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 

for subscriptions to newspapers. We can hardly be grateful 
enough to those periodicals which employed this method of 
increasing their circulation and of brightening the homes of 
their constituency. But a greater thing than the chromo was 
to come, in the invention of the half-tone cut. By it any 

8 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



453 



painting, photographed through a screen upon a sensitized 
copper plate, can be reproduced in black and white and in any 
desired size, by the printing-press. 

And now comes three-color printing; by means of which a 
painting may be thrice photographed through screens that in 
succession permit the passage only of red, yellow, and blue 
rays, and then reproduced by the printing-press on paper 
printed successively from plates made by these exposures in 




the divine shepherd 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 



the original three colors in all their combinations. We are 
yet to see wonderful results from this discovery. But for our 
present purpose we stop with the half-tone cut. 

This new art has done more to popularize art than any dis- 
covery since the invention of printing. Famous pictures repro- 
duced in excellent style, are sold for a cent, and are by no 
means to be despised. They are giving our children an edu- 
cation in art which their parents never could have obtained. 

9 



454 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

They are filling the humblest homes with pictures, often given 
away in Sunday-school, which would have made the old mas- 
ters exclaim with delight. 

This popularization of art has made the face of Jesus, in all 
ages from infancy to the ascension, so familiar to the whole 
world, that it may be counted a new revelation of the Christ. 




the holy child 
(murillo, 1617-1682) 

The artists have been toiling through the centuries, laboring 
each for the few who could come and look upon the single 
picture; now in a single day the picture appears upon the walls 
of a million homes, and the old master and the painter of the 
day hang their faces of the Christ side by side in homes all 
over the world. 

10 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



455 



What kind of Christ do the artists reveal? Is there any 
authorized conception of Christ upon which they base their 
work? Is there any generally accepted ideal to which these 
pictures appeal? What is the Christ who has emerged from 
the studio, and now appears anew among men? 

The conception of Jesus which is current in any given age 
may be judged, not simply by its own new productions, but 




THE CHRIST OF MURILLO (1617-1682) 



also by those which it has inherited from the past and which 
it still loves. The Christ of popular thought is a composite 
photograph of all these. If we know what pictures of Jesus 
are truly loved, we shall know how people think of Jesus. 
The question is not mainly that of the artist's personal theol- 
ogy or ideal, but of the sentiment to which his picture appeals. 



1 1 



456 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

We have, besides modern works of art, the inherited and 
successive attempts of Christian artists, each of which has 
value as a theological interpretation of its own time, and 
somewhat also of value as indicating the taste and ideals of 
subsequent ages that have preserved and admired them. It 
is not the purpose of this essay to inquire what various views 
of the nature and character of Jesus are suggested by the 
paintings of different ages. Our concern is with the net result. 
What of the paintings that survive, and that are loved, not 
as works of art alone, but as faithful records of what people 
believe and feel about Jesus? What kind of being is it whom 
the people of to-day believe in, as judged by the paintings that 
we love? Several different answers might be given, not only 
as judged by different sorts of popularity, but also as judged 
by the groups of paintings of the childhood, the youth, and 
the manhood of Jesus. Our field of inquiry is not so much 
among those paintings that are counted technically great, as 
among those that are truly, and in the best sense, popular. 
Painting, then, affords us our field for inquiry as to the face 
and figure that has emerged from the thought of the artists, 
and taken its place, not merely on canvas, but in popular 
thought, as the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

II— EARLY CHRISTIAN ART 

The question of the personal appearance of Jesus was dis- 
cussed at times in the early church, but not with an attempt 
accurately to describe his looks or bearing. The question 
rather was whether his general appearance was prepossessing 
or the reverse. The arguments did not pretend to be based 
upon personal sight or knowledge, but rather on the interpre- 
tation of prophetic passages, as that which speaks of one who 
is "chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." 

It is notable that the view founded on this and like passages 
differs diametrically from what is said to have been at one time 
the dominant conception of the Christ. Not only did the 
heathen Celsus argue a probable deformity as a reason for 
the Jews' rejection of Christ as their Messiah, but many of 

12 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



457 



the Fathers, assuming that the prophet's words referred to 
Christ's personal appearance, "He hath no form nor come- 




CHRIST BRINGING THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF LIFE 

Glass ornament suspended from the neck of a Christian 
woman, aged 22, and called by her husband in a cata- 
comb inscription, "Sweetest of Wives" — Very early 

liness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we 
should desire him," describe his appearance as base. Clement 
of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Tertullian all agree 




CHRIST AS ORPHEUS 

(FROM THE catacombs) 

in this, and there was a tradition based on the Vulgate of Isaiah 
53:4, that he was a leper. 

13 



458 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



It is worth while to notice, and gratefully, that no one of 
the Fathers who held this unhappy view of the person of 
Christ seems to have committed that conception to canvas. 
Indeed, there was a strong prejudice against any attempt to 





THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
SURROUNDED BY CHRISTIAN EMBLEMS 

(from THE catacombs) 



THE NATIVITY 
FROM A SARCOPHAGUS. 343 A. D. 



depict his person. In what was probably the earliest art his 
personality is suggested in symbol, analogy, or type. 

The first representatives of Christ were not designed to 
gratify the love of art, but were attempts at religious instruc- 




THE GOOD SHEPHERD, WITH JONAH AS A PROTOTYPE, AND AGAPE P.ELOW 

tion and consolation. They were in large measure crude, mor- 
tuary emblems, buried with the dead or rudely inscribed above 
them. First there were symbols of the resurrection, or of faith 
in Christ. Sometimes the emblems had a mystic significance, 

14 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



459 



as the sign of the fish, of which much has been conjectured, 
and which was an early symbol of Christian faith. It is said, 
though perhaps not on good authority, that a political party 




THE RAISING OF LAZARUS 

Wrought in gold figures on the bottom of 
a glass cup in the Catacombs — Very early 

in America created its name from the initials of a motto — "We 
Hope In God" — Whig. The ancients were far more attentive 
than we to acrostics; and it is said that the sign of the fish 






THE CHRISMA 
MONOGRAM 



THE LABARIUM 
OF CONSTANTINE 



THE EGYPTIAN 
CRUX AN S ATA 



PRIMITIVE FORMS OF THE CROSS. 

was derived from the Greek word for fish, Ichthus, whose five 
letters in the Greek form the initials of the words "Jesus 
Christ, God's Son, Saviour." At all events, the fish was widely 
used in the early Church. 

15 



460 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The emblematic representations of Christ were not the only 
ones, however. He was often represented in type, as by the 
prophet Jonah; and, when the sacrifice of Christ grew in em- 
phasis, he was represented under the type of the offering of 
Isaac by his father Abraham. 

From these Old Testament representations it was an easy 
step to the New, where the miracles furnished a fruitful field 
for the crude art of the early church. But even in the illustra- 
tions of Christ's miracles the person of Jesus is drawn without 
much individuality. It is simply a conventional figure, who 




CENTISPO'QVEM. 



ELECITDOAYSPAVSATo 

INP-I^n ip§ V W AGE 
FIDE $^pF%\f LIS 

^X^A/|Sfl ifl LSEPT 
SEPT 1 f$ H# M/CeMBRES 



gr^ip^WiS^ 



the baptism of christ with water from heaven 
(early fresco) 

evokes from the tomb the swathed and mummied Lazarus; it is 
the miracle that is recalled, rather than the personality of Jesus. 
There is one notable fact, however, about these • first 
attempts to portray the Christ as a man, which is that they 
uniformly represent him as a young man — the ideal of youth. 
Eminent authorities declare that it was centuries before he was 
represented with a beard. The face is fair and serene. 
Jesus is the personification of buoyant, hopeful, young life. 
As a young man he appears in scenes like the raising of Laz- 
arus. The entire absence of attempt to produce a likeness 
shows that the artists associate the conception of Christ with 

16 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



461 



the ideal of youth, and so pictures do not pretend to be por- 
traits — the Christ in them is in the personification of joyous 
strength, with perhaps a suggestion of immortal youth. 

Among all the typical representations of Christ, none was so 
popular or so frequently used as that of the Good Shepherd. 
There is still no attempt at portraiture — it is the same figure 
of youth that confronts us; but it is a youth who is tall, alert 
and strong, bearing on his shoulders a lamb. If Archdeacon 
Farrar and Dean Stanley are right, the conception of Christ 
as the Good Shepherd was the dominant one in the early 
Church. It was the favorite figure in the catacombs, and as 




THE NATIVITY 
(FROM A SARCOPHAGUS OF THE FOURTH century) 

common as later pictures of the passion became. Farrar 
affirms that for four hundred years we have no single represen- 
tation of the Christ as a worn and weary sufferer; but there 
are many which represent him as leading his flock as in John 
10, or as bringing home the lost sheep, as in Luke 15. So 
large was the thought of the divine compassion, as expressed 
in these pictures, that sometimes the rescued animal is not a 
sheep but a kid, tenderly carried while the sheep walk beside 
the shepherd. 

The foregoing stages of art are assumed by some authors 
to have been successive, and to have occupied several centuries 
before the production of actual attempts at verisimilitude; but 

17 



462 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

other authorities deny that we can thus classify the art of the 
church chronologically, and affirm that several of these forms 
were contemporary, and that the earliest portraits are of great 
antiquity. 

When the attempts at actual portraiture became common, 
there came with them also a development of the use of sym- 
bols. The lamb now ceases to be the symbol of the rescued 
sinner, and becomes the type of the crucified Saviour. The 
joyousness of the early religion faded out, and the sadder ele- 
ments became prominent with the growth of monasticism. In 
691 the Council of Constantinople, directly opposing the canon 
of the Council of Elvira which had forbidden the use of pic- 
tures in churches, decreed "that henceforth Christ is to be 
publicly exhibited in the figure of a man, not a lamb, that we 
may be led to remember Christ's conversation in the flesh, and 
his passion and saving death, and the redemption which he 
wrought for the world." 

Thenceforth pictures of the Christ became numerous, and, 
in accordance with the suggestion of the canon, and the grow- 
ing spirit of the Church that substituted the Dies Irae for 
Clement's sweet hymn, "Shepherd of tender youth," the suf- 
ferings of Christ became a favorite theme. With this, and the 
various scenes of the passion, came visions of judgment; and 
the Christ appeared alternately as a helpless sufferer in the 
hands of sinners, and as a wrathful judge passing condemna- 
tion upon sinners. 

The happier, gentler aspects did not wholly fail, however, 
for there was necessity for historic variety and the compassing 
of representative scenes in his whole life. There was fre- 
quently a series of scenes, including three or four of the fol- 
lowing, as tabulated by Miss Hurll in her excellent book on 
"The Life of our Lord in Art": The Adoration of the Kings; 
The Raising of Lazarus; the Multiplication of the Loaves; the 
Turning of Water into Wine; the Healing of the Lame Man; 
the Healing of the Blind Man; the Woman Kneeling at 
Christ's Feet, the Woman of Samaria, the Entry Into Jeru- 
salem, Christ Before Pilate. To these were sometimes added: 

18 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 463 

The Nativity; the Baptism; Christ Washing- Peter's Feet, and 
The Cross-bearing. These were used in frescoes, some of them 
in the catacombs, in mosaic decorations of churches, and in 
bas-relief ornamentation of sarcophagi. 

We have noted the use of symbols in the early Church, ante- 
dating the general use of attempts at actual representations of 
Christ. Such symbols did not cease when it became common 
to paint the face and form of Jesus, but some of the old symbols 
disappeared, and another came into sudden and growing popu- 
larity. When Constantine saw his vision with the legend 
"By this sign you shall conquer," the symbol which he saw 
emblazoned on the sky was not the fish, but the cross. It was 
a daring choice of emblems, even for a monarch; for the cross 
had only the most grewsome and terrible associations, such as 
with us are associated with the gallows. 

With the vision of Constantine the Cross became the emblem 
of the Church. It was not, however, the Latin cross, but the 
Chrisma symbol, the Greek letters X P, wrought into a mono- 
gram, and representing the letters Chr, the initials of Christ. 
The early form of the cross, the Labarium of Constantine, the 
handled cross with the ring of the P at the top, made easier 
another adaptation, and a beautiful one. Christianity grew 
strong in Egypt. One of its chief centers was at Alexandria. 
Christian schools and churches dotted the banks of the Nile 
for hundreds of miles. Egypt had its cross. It was not 
the cross of punishment but the key of life. For millenniums 
the Egyptians had inscribed all over their monuments this 
crux ansata, the cross with a round handle at the top. As the 
key of life it appears in the hands of the innumerable deities 
of Egypt, and as a confession of faith in immortality it is 
inscribed on papyrus and sarcophagus. In Egypt this symbol 
was adapted to the uses of the Church. Sometimes the crux 
ansata was borrowed without change; sometimes it appeared 
alternately with the Christian cross; and, when it became 
common to represent the Christ upon the cross, the round 
loop at the top was sometimes filled in with a head of Christ, 
and the kev of life became the crucifix. The use of this symbol 

19 



464 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

was not wholly confined to Egypt, but found its way to Rome, 
and appeared sometimes on the tombs of martyrs with the 
handle of the key transformed to a wreath of immortality. 

Contrary to popular impression, therefore, the cross is not 
the most ancient of Christian symbols. It finds no place 
among the earliest emblems of the Church. The resurrection, 
not the crucifixion, was the great doctrine of the early Church. 
Christ living was the truth that found abundant expression 
on the tombs of the catacombs. We are not sure that we find 
any examples of the cross as such before the fourth century; 
and as for the Christ upon the cross, nothing could more have 
horrified the Church of the early centuries than the fearful 
representations of physical suffering which became so hideously 
frequent in the middle ages. After the time of Constantine 
the cross became common, and after a time the face or bust 
of Christ was occasionally drawn above it. When first Christ 
was depicted upon the cross, perhaps in the eighth century, 
it was without wounds or expressions of pain; a living Christ, 
with the cross behind him, looking down and giving life and 
light to men. Not a single scene of our Lord's suffering, not 
a single picture of a haggard or tortured Saviour appears, so 
far as known, in early Christian art. In 586 we have the first 
assured picture of the crucifixion in the Syriac Gospel in the 
Laurentian Library of Florence, but this was quite exceptional. 
Not till ion are we sure that we have an example of the dead 
Christ upon the cross. The passion as a theme in Christian 
art dates from the Council of Constantinople, 692, and from 
that time on the imagination of the painters was tortured to 
devise new horrors for their sanguinary canvases. 

We cannot contemplate without a shudder the art of those 
ages which subjected the likeness of Christ to all imaginable 
tortures. That men were moved by these pictures we know 
from such incidents as that of Count Zinzendorf, the change in 
whose life dated from the sight of a picture of the Crucifixion 
with the words beneath, "This I did for thee; what hast thou 
done for me?" But it is a mistake to suppose that real and 
deep piety can be produced by the mere contemplation of 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 465 

physical agony. It was the age of the Inquisition, with its 
thumb-screws and its racks, its flaming stakes and its bloody 
gibbets, that produced its acres of canvas with crucified Christs 
dripping blood, and dead Christs horribly wounded. It is a 
comfort to know that in protesting against the monotony and 
the sacrilege and the brutality of these representations, we are 
attacking no cherished institution of the ancient Church, but 
a more than questionable device of Mediaeval art, an art that 
was gifted but lacking in compassion, and that knew Christ 
as the Virgin's Child or the sacrifice for sin, but had not 
learned, as it should have learned, of the strength and sweet- 
ness of his abiding life. 

Ill— HAVE WE A LIKENESS OF CHRIST? 

Have the early attempts to depict the face of Christ anv 
real historic value? This is certainly an interesting, even if an 
unimportant, question. The answer involves some historic 
research. Where did the earliest Christian artists who 
attempted to make the face of Christ real, obtain their ideal? 

There is a tradition to the effect that Luke painted a por- 
trait of Jesus, for Abgarus, king of Edessa. Eusebius, in the 
fourth century, gives the tradition that the Greeks at the last 
passover who expressed the desire to see Jesus, were an 
embassy from Abgarus, inviting Jesus to his dominion. Tra- 
dition grew concerning Abgarus. He was sick, and Jesus 
could not go to heal him, but sent Luke, who healed the king 
in the name of the Lord. Abgarus desired to know how Jesus 
looked, and Luke made a painting of the face of Jesus. 

About 1895 a picture of apparent antiquity was exhibited in 
Boston as possibly that which Luke had painted. One or two 
prominent men in the Roman Catholic Church gave its appar- 
ent genuineness the sanction of their names, and ecclesiastical 
testimony was not lacking. A plausible story was told, too. 
of the way in which the picture had come to light. In a more 
credulous age or community it might have been accepted as 
genuine. I saw the painting which was exhibited by intelli- 
gent and apparently honest people, and while wholly disre- 



4 66 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



garding the story about it, was much impressed by the pic- 
ture itself, which had far more of individuality and strength 
than any picture I have seen for which similar claims are made. 
The eyes were light, clear blue, and the hair was red. The face 
was not in the least idealized, and it haunted the memory 
afterward. What became of it I do not know. 

The most notable of the portraits alleged to have been 




LIKENESS OF CHRIST ATTRIBUTED TO ST. LUKE 
(FROM THE DRAWING OF THOMAS HEAPHY) 

painted by Luke is that in the Bibliotheca of the Vatican, 
where it is framed in gold, and embellished with gems. I give 
a picture of it from Heaphy's notable reproduction in the Brit- 
ish Museum. 

Tradition also asserted that Luke made a portrait of the 
Virgin; and this tradition grew till it included the infant Jesus. 
The improbability of such a relation extending back over 
thirty years from the time of the Abgarus incident, and half a 

22 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



46/ 



century from the first record in acts of Luke himself, never 
troubled the artists of the middle ages. The Boston Museum 
of Fine Arts has an excellent painting by Rogier van der 




luke painting the madonna 
(rogier van der weyden, 1399-1464) 



Weyden (1399- 1464) of Luke, making his portrait of the 
Madonna and child. In St. Mark's, in Venice, one may see, 
if he has good fortune, a picture said to have been Luke's por- 
trait of Mary. 



23 



468 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



I give herewith a reproduction, from a lithographed card 
which I bought in Saint Mark's, in Venice, of the Madonna 
there which Luke is said to have painted. The back of the 




luke's alleged portrait of the virgin 

card contains a prayer to the Virgin, and a multitude of 
miracles is alleged to have been wrought by means of this holy 
portrait. I also give a reproduction of the authorized likeness 
of the Bambino in the Church of the Friars Minor in Ara 
Cceli in Rome. This is not a painting, but an image in olive- 

24 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



469 



wood, said to have been wrought by a Franciscan monk in 
the fifteenth century in wood from the Garden of Gethsemane. 
It is by means of these lithographed cards, the size of the 
reproduction, that the likeness of the image is given wide 
circulation. This image, to quote from the card, "is known, 




THE BAMBINO IN THE CHURCH IN 
ARA COELI, ROME 



visited, and honored by the whole Catholic world, owing to 
the innumerable favors which the Divine Infant bestows on 
those who venerate it." This card also bears a prayer which 
carries "one hundred days' indulgence once a day applicable 
to the souls in Purgatory." The image is credited with 
wonderful cures of children, and is surrounded by votive 

25 



470 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



offerings from grateful parents. The image itself was solemnly 
crowned by the Vatican Chapter on May 2, 1897, having 
already received official recognition of Pope Leo XIII., Janu- 
ary 18, 1894. It is covered with jewels, whose number con- 
stantly increases. The little lithographs, sold at the church, 






THE NAPKIN OF SAINT VERONICA 
IN THE SACRISTY OF SAINT PETER'S, ROME 
(FROM THE DRAWING OF THOMAS HEAPHY) 



are eagerly purchased by thousands, and treasured almost 
beyond price. If a confessedly modern work of art can win 
such a high place in the affection of the people, it is little 
wonder that those should be popular which are believed to 
have been wrought by the apostles. 

26 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



471 



In the fifteenth century the legend of Veronica became cur- 
rent. According to this tradition, Jesus was passing the home of 
this noble woman of Jerusalem, bearing his cross, his face drip- 
ping with blood from the crown of thorns. She wiped his face 
with a napkin, and received it back with his features miracu- 
lously printed upon it. This legend grew in detail. Veronica 




- - - : 



imW^p:, 



iff 






THE FAMOUS ONE-LINE PORTRAIT OF CHRIST 
(CLAUDE MELLAN, 1 598- 1 688) 

was the woman who had touched the hem of Christ's garment. 
She became so constant a feature in representations of the 
crucifixion that she sometimes accompanied and again ex- 
cluded the Virgin herself; and she still is present in works 
down to Tissot, and her house is confidently shown in Jeru- 
salem. The incident is celebrated as one of "the stations of the 
cross" by Romanists since 1477. 

27 



472 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



The napkin of Veronica was produced almost as soon as the 
legend, and as is usual in such cases, it was preserved in 
triplicate. It may still be seen, once a year, in Rome — two 
places — and also in Genoa and Constantinople. The most 
noted of these napkins, that in the sacristy in Saint Peter's, 
Rome, is probably a face-cloth, laid over the countenance of 
a corpse, and stained by its decomposition. Those in the 
church of Saint Silvestro in Rome and that of Saint Bartol- 
ommeo in Genoa are declared by Mrs. Jameson to be crude 
middle-age forgeries. 




LIFE-SIZE FRESCO FROM THE CATACOMB OF ST. CALISTO 

(SECOND century) 

Probably the earliest extant representation of Christ 

with beard and parted hair. 



The story of Veronica has had a strange fascination for 
artists. One of the most unique attempts to utilize it is that 
of Claude Mellan (i 598-1688), who drew the face of Christ, 
tear-stained and thorn-crowned, in a single line. From one 
of his original prints I am able to give the reproduction in 
this volume. The modern artist, Gabriel Max, has utilized the 
tradition in his portrait of Christ, in a face of fascinating 
sorrow and mystery, whose deep, closed eyes, when long and 
intently regarded, seem to open in a look of calm but unutter- 



able grief. 



28 



AS ART REVEALS HIM. 



473 



Many good people are wholly unwilling to believe that these 
portraits which bear the names of Luke and Veronica are 
forgeries. Some of them contend that even if the paintings 




THE NAPKIN OF VERONICA — (GABRIEL MAX, 1846 — ) 



were not made as described in the legends, they were made 
in good faith, at a very early date and are to be regarded as 
embodying an ancient, and probably reliable, tradition of the 
appearance of Jesus. 



29 



474 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



Among those who defended this view was Mr. Thomas 
Heaphy, an English artist and an enthusiastic believer in the 
antiquity of the likeness of Christ. He made repeated journeys 
to Rome, and obtained drawings from the catacombs and 
churches to prove his conviction. His drawings are now in 
the British Museum, and were reproduced in a volume issued 
after his death, entitled 'The Likeness of Christ," a book of 




BYZANTINE LIKENESS OF CHRIST, ENGRAVED ON GOLD 

(SIZE OF illustration) 

To be worn under clothing. 

Probably the earliest extant specimen. 



which only two hundred and fifty copies were printed, and 
these were soon exhausted. The Society for Promoting 
Biblical Knowledge then issued a cheaper reprint, disclaiming 
responsibility, however, for Mr. Heaphy's dates. This edition, 
too, is out of print. Whatever the reliability of Mr. Heaphy's 
conclusions — and they are those of the artist rather than the 
logician — his drawings have great value, and I have reproduced 
several of them in this volume. While this work was in prep- 

30 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



475 



aration, and this portion of it nearly complete, I had the good 
fortune to obtain a copy of the sumptuous first edition, with 
plates colored by hand, by Sir Wyke Bayliss, his collaborator 
and editor. 

Continuing alone the work begun by Mr. Heaphy, Sir Wyke 
Bayliss published the results of his own researches in a volume 




mosaic from the baptistry of constantine, 

fourth century 

(from heaphy's "likeness of christ") 



entitled "Rex Regum," recently entered upon a second edition. 
He is president of the Royal Society of British Artists, and this 
work, in its first edition, was dedicated "by command" to 
Queen Victoria shortly before her death. The book devotes 
itself to proving that there has come down from the earliest 

31 



476 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



Christian centuries a consistent type, everywhere received as 
the face of Jesus Christ. He contends that "The likeness of 
Christ with which the contemporaries of the Apostles adorned 
the catacombs was the same that survived through the second 
and third centuries, and was in the fourth transferred to the 
mosaics of the basilicas." Of the fresco in the catacomb of Saint 
Callisto, he says, "I believe it to have been the work of a 




1 



MINIATURE MOSAIC FROM THE CATACOMBS, 

NOW IN THE MUSEUM OF THE VATICAN (VERY EARLY) 

(FROM HEAPHY'S "LIKENESS OF CHRIST") 

Roman artist, a portrait painter, who had himself seen Christ, 
and the profile from the catacomb of Saints Achilli e Nereo 
cannot be anything else than a portrait. It was done by a 
Roman, for Romans who expected a portrait to be a likeness." 
Heaphy records the tradition which he learned in Rome, 
that this was the work of a heathen artist, employed by the 
Christians, who, however, recorded their opinion that it looked 
too much like a heathen philosopher. 

32 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



477 



Mrs, Jameson long ago said of these catacomb frescoes and 
mosaics, ''Little can be gathered from heads uncertain in 
intention, vague in date, opposite in character, and, above all, 
in the ruined state to which time and injury have reduced 
them." 




THE MADONNA OF THE CHAIR 
(RAPHAEL, I483-I520) 



A book such as this undertakes to be is no place for the 
discussion of questions such as the date of disputed frescoes 
and mosaics, and I am entirely willing to leave them to those 
whose special knowledge fits them for the undertaking; but I 
have felt in reading recently the writings of these two artists 
that, while the argument falls far short of their assumed demon- 

33 



478 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



stration, there is more to be said upon their side than I had 
supposed; and I see no reason why the likeness of Jesus may 
not have a greater antiquity than the more conservative 
scholars have been accustomed to admit. 




THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN — (PAPPERITZ) 

Beside the alleged portraits, whatever their date may be, 
there are certain oral descriptions of the person of Jesus which 
are often referred to. In the middle ages two accounts became 
current, which, while of little historic value, are of great worth 
as a record of the concept of Christ in popular consciousness. 
That these two descriptions had much in common is less 

34 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 479 

remarkable when we remember that the Church had never 
conceded the right of the artist to invent his conception of 
the Christ. In 787 the second Nicene Council declared that 




IMMACULATE CONCEPTION — (MURILLO, 1617-1682) 

"It is not the invention of the painter that creates the picture, 
but an inviolable law, a tradition of the Catholic Church. It 
is not the painters, but the holy fathers who have to invent and 
to dictate. To them manifestly belongs the composition; to 
the painter only the execution." 

35 



480 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

It is interesting and profitable to record the two pen pictures 
of Jesus to which painters, thus admonished, conformed their 
representations of Jesus. In the fifteenth century the historian 
Nicephorus records this description of the Christ, which he 
says has come down from antiquity: 




THE MADONNA OF THE ARBOR — (DAGNAN-BOUVRET) 

''He was very beautiful. His height was fully seven spans; 
his hair bright auburn, and not too thick, and was inclined to 
wave in soft curls. His eyebrows were black and arched, and 
his eyes seemed to shed from them a gentle golden light. 
They were very beautiful. His nose was prominent; his beard 
lovely, but not too long. He wore his hair, on the contrary, 

36 



AS ART REVEALS HIM. 



481 



very long, for no scissors had ever touched it, nor any human 
hand except that of his mother, when she had played with it 




RAPHAEL PAINTING THE MADONNA OF THE CHAIR 
(j. W. WITTMER, l802-l88o) 



in his childhood. He stooped a little, but his body was well 
formed. His complexion was like that of the ripe brown 
wheat, and his face, like his mother's, rather oval than round, 

37 



482 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



with only a little red in it, but through it there shone dignity, 
intelligence of soul, gentleness, and a calmness of spirit never 
disturbed." 




THE VISIT OF THE SHEPHERDS — (ALBRECHT DURER. 1510) 

In the Western Church a similar legend current in the fif- 
teenth century did service, purporting to be a letter of 
Lentulus to the Roman Senate: 

"There has appeared, and still lives, a man of great virtue, 
called Jesus Christ, and by his disciples, the Son of God. He 
raises the dead, and heals the sick. He is a man tall in stature, 
noble in appearance, with a reverend countenance which at 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



483 



once attracts and keeps at a distance those beholding it. His 
hair is waving and curly; a little darker and of richer bright- 
ness where it flows down from the shoulders. It is divided in 




THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI — (ALBRECHT DURER, I5Il) 



the middle after the manner of the Nazirites. His brow is 
smooth, and wonderfully serene, and his features have no 
wrinkles, nor any blemish, while a red glow makes his cheeks 
beautiful. His nose and mouth are perfect. He has a full, 
ruddy beard, the color of his hair, not long, but divided into 
two. His eyes are bright, and seem of different colors at 
different times." 

39 



484 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



These descriptions present an ideal which has not greatly 
changed. Most of the great masterpieces that we know and 
love exhibit essentially the characteristics upon which these 
two traditions agree. They may be quite worthless as history; 




THE CORONATION OF THE MADONN A — ( BOTTICELLI. I447-I5IO) 



but they certainly are of value as showing a conception of 
Christ in popular thought whose main features have been per- 
sistent for five hundred years at least, and whose outlines in 
the imagination of the Church are possibly centuries older. 

40 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



IV— MARY AND HER CHILD 



485 



If Christian art has given to the world but one new thing, 
that one thing is the conception of the value of child life and 
the beauty of motherhood, as set forth in the Madonna and 




THE MADONNA — (FILIPPINO LIPPI, I460-I505) 

her Son. True, the Italian artist's Madonna is an Italian, and 
the Holland artist's is Dutch. Each nation gives its own 
shape to the ideal, and this adaptation but adds to the glory 
of it. The beautiful truth is one that every Christian nation 
may drape in its own costume. It is the apotheosis of mother- 

41 



486 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



hood, the crown and glory of childhood. It makes every 
Christian mother a sharer in the rich glory of the Magnificat, 
and enshrines every cradle with a halo from the star of Bethle- 
hem. Into a world that thought of woman with little of honor, 
came the Christ-child to dignify at once both motherhood and 
childhood. Scenes so picturesque as those attending the 




- 




MATER DOLOROSA — (CUJDO RENI, I575-1642) 

Incarnation could but inspire the artist. While the theologian 
is formulating his dogma of the incarnate Logos, the artist is 
compelling faith in the new glory of childhood and of mother- 
hood with his pictures of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the 
Song of the Angels and the adoration of the Magi. If Chris- 
tian art had failed everywhere else, the triumph here would 
have been superlative. However well or ill the artists have 



42 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



487 



painted the face of the man Jesus of Nazareth, they have given 
to the Babe of Bethlehem the perfection of childish grace and 
beauty. This both registers and defines, if in part it does not 
create, a popular ideal, and the result is one which we must 
view with gratitude. 

The Madonna of the modern artist is of another sort than 
she of the middle ages. She wears no halo; she is not sur- 




the virgin adoring the child 
(fra filippo lippi. 1412-1469) 



rounded by angels. She is just a beautiful young mother, with 
a sweet baby. The "Madonna of the Arbor," by Dagnan- 
Bouveret, is beautiful in her pure robes of white, and her 
swaddled baby takes us back to Palestine; but why is she less 
devotional than the portrait of the cooper's wife, drawn by 
Raphael upon a barrel-head in his "Madonna of the Chair"? Is 
the difference in the spirit of the paintings, or in our own 

43 



488 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



imagination, or in our adoration of the past? Even when a 
modern artist attempts idealization, as Papperitz in his "Queen 
of Heaven," it is a very different figure from Murillo's immortal 
"Immaculate Conception," in which the Virgin is the woman 
of the Apocalypse standing on the moon. There is no attempt 




THE SISTINE MADONNA — (RAPHAEL) 

to conform her to the requirements of a dogma. She is just 
a sweet human mother, caught up into the heavens by love — 
love for her baby, and, let us hope, love for God who gave him. 
The Madonna of to-day is not a crowned goddess, as Botticelli 
painted her, nor is she the Mater Dolorosa of Guido Reni. 

44 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



489 



Even the angels are sometimes humanized in these latter- 
day paintings. If full grown, they are pure young women, 
unmistakably modern, and if cherubs they are twentieth- 
century babies; and he would be a rash man who could call 




THE NATIVITY — (\V. A. BOUGUEREAU, 1825 — ) 

the former inferior to the angels of Fra Angelico, or the latter 
less angelic than Raphael's cherubs. 

Among the paintings which beautifully portray both mother- 
hood and childhood, the Madonna of Correggio (1494-1534), 

45 




Copyright 1903 by Frank Wood. 
THE MADONNA AND CHILD — (CORREGGIO. I494-I534) 



46 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



491 



deserves mention. Stolen a century ago, and hidden away 
in what proved to be a valuable collection of old masters, it 




Courtesy of Mr. Willis Bradford Jones 

MEXICAN MADONNA 
(SLIGHTLY REDUCED FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING, ON silk) 

was discovered not many years since, and competent critics 
have pronounced it certainly genuine. It needs no great name, 

47 



492 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

however, to assure its beauty. In it both mother and child 
appear in the full glory of their purity and sweetness. 

The Madonna of Mexico is interesting, and comparatively 
unfamiliar. A friend whose extensive business interests take 
him on extended visits to Mexico has procured a number of 
early examples. One of these, a quaint old miniature on silk, 
I reproduce, only a trifle reduced from the size of the original. 
It represents the Virgin, richly robed and crowned, sur- 
rounded by emblems of the crucifixion. The head of Christ 
and those of the thieves are there, with the Sacred Heart of 
Jesus, and the pierced hands and feet. Beside these are Peter's 
sword and the cock, the lantern of the mob, and the purse 
of Judas marked with the value of its contents, the scourge, 
the rope, the spear and hammer, and even the dice with which 
the soldiers cast lots. It would be hard for art to go farther 
in the way of symbolic realism; but the Virgin herself almost 
redeems the picture with her sweetness and dignity. 

But more famous is Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose portrait, 
miraculously painted on the tilma, the rough outer garment 
of an Indian convert, on December 12, 1531, adorns the high 
altar of the church at Guadalupe. The garment had been 
filled with roses, gathered by the Indian in a sterile place, to 
prove the truth of his message that the Virgin commanded 
the building of a church there, and when the roses were 
emptied at the feet of the bishop to whom the message was 
sent, the portrait was discovered on the cloth of the tilma. 
Popes have recognized this miracle since 1663, and confirmed 
it by the bull of May 25, 1754. In almost every house in 
Mexico the Guadalupe is to be found, and is the object of 
most devout adoration. Standing in the crescent moon, em- 
bowered in roses, and winged onward by an upholding seraph, 
the Madonna stands, erect and serene. Few pictures have 
such interest as this. A copy of it in 18 10 constituted the 
banner of the Revolution, led by the political priest Hidalgo. 
The most famous of the Madonnas of the Old World, the 
Sistine, was painted to be used as a labarium, or banner. So 
this most famous of the Madonnas of the New World, by its 

48 




Courtesy of Miss Grace E. Shoemaker 



OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE 
(FROM AN EARLY COPY ON copper) 



49 



494 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



most noted copy, has done service as a flag. Round it rallied 
the hosts of Mexico, relying on her protection, while they 
fought for the liberties of their country. Nor did her help 
fail them, if the issue may be counted proof; for, though the 
revolutionists lost, and their leader was sentenced to death, 
the spirit of the revolution revived again, and in time the yoke 
of Spain was cast off. The first president of the new republic, 




THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM — (PIGLHEIM) 

Felix Ferandez, in recognition of her signal favors, changed 
his name to Guadalupe Victoria, and the Lady of Guadalupe 
became the patron saint, not only of the Mexican church, but 
of the new nation. A very early copy of the Guadalupe has 
been loaned me for this book. It is a painting in oil, on a 
sheet of beaten copper, and is a very faithful copy of the 
original, with some additional roses in the margin. 

So 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



495 



He who will trace the growth of Jesus from infancy to 
youth through the paintings of a single great artist, will find 
his ideal of beautiful motherhood and perfect childhood almost 
satisfied. The paintings of Murillo afford an example which 
may be begun even further back. Let Mary first appear in the 
Immaculate Conception, her pure soul radiant through her 
sweet face; and then let the same face be seen in his Madonna, 
the mother holding the child upon her knee, and the face 




the virgin and the infant jesus 
(gherardo delle notti, 1590-1656) 



appears yet again in the child. Still let the face be followed 
in paintings of the Flight, and the Repose in Egypt, and still 
further as Mary gradually recedes in pictures of the Holy 
Family, and the child is seen at length alone with his foster- 
father Joseph. The child shows nothing of the face of Joseph; 
no human heredity appears save that from Mary; but it is no 
longer the mother's face that we see in the picture; it has an 
individuality of its own. Now Joseph disappears, and the 

51 




THE VISIT OF MARY TO ELIZABETH 
(TITIAN, I477-I576) 



52 




THE ANNUNCIATION 
( DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI, 1 828- 1 882) 



53 



498 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



child appears shepherding a lamb — childishly prophetic of the 
coming work of the Good Shepherd; and the face is that of 
a boy, but a wonderful boy. At length we detach the face of 




THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 
(CL.\UDE LORRAINE. 160O-1682) 

the child from all others, and behold it alone. The deep, pure, 
soulful eyes are there, as we first saw them in Mary; but the 
child is increasing in wisdom and in stature, waxing strong in 
spirit, and the grace of God is upon him. In whatever else 

54 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



499 



the artists have failed, they have succeeded here. The pictures 
of the boyhood of Jesus present a strong and beautiful ideal. 

We have but one incident of the youth of Jesus recorded 
in the gospels, together with the general statements that this 
was exceptional, that he was subject to his parents, that he 
increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and 
man, and that he was known as a carpenter. But this is 
enough, and the artists have done well with this material, nor 




THE REPOSE IN EGYPT — (LEROLLE) 



have they in general overworked it. If the mysticism and 
mannerism of the English Pre-Raphaelite are sometimes 
excessive, there is no denying the rare beauty and power of 
Holman Hunt's painting, 'The Finding of Christ in the 
Temple." If we miss anything from the face of the adult 
Christ in the pictures of Hofmann, we can but admire the 
eager, intelligent, self-possessed and high-minded boy in his 
"Christ and the Doctors." If Tissot gives to us grim and 
unsatisfactory representations of the Man of Sorrows, the lad 

55 



500 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



at the fountain with his mother is delicate, and full of soul: 
and his carpenter boy in "The Youth of Jesus" is not only a 
vigorous and wholesome apprentice, but a fine, thoughtful 
lad as well, in whose pure, deep soul there is the pondering of 




JESUS AND THE CHILDREN 

mysteries and conquest of self for the sake of the future as 
yet unknown. So far as these record accurately the popular 
conception of the youth of Jesus, they stand for high ideals, 
and they follow the data afforded by the Gospels too faithfully 
to be wide of the historic facts. 

56 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



50I 




Copyright— Courtesy of S. S. McClure Co. 



THE CARPENTER SHOP AT NAZARETH 
(CORWIN KNAPP LINSON) 

V— THE CARPENTER WHO BECAME THE CHRIST 

Dr. Farrar calls attention to the fact that Holman Hunt's 
"The Shadow of Death" is almost the only notable picture of 
the adult Jesus, in the period when he was still a carpenter. 
The time is sunset, and Jesus is wearied with the day's labor. 
He rises and stretches himself in an attitude at once of weari- 
ness and of prayer. Back a little in the shop Mary kneels 
beside the treasures given her by the magi twenty-five or 
thirty years before. What did these gifts prefigure? Some- 
thing causes her to look up, and she sees the shadow of his 
outstretched form cast by the level sun upon the rear wall 
of the shop, where the rack and tools form a cross. It is a 
great picture; but in it Jesus is still the carpenter: he is not 
yet the Christ. 

We have the same artist's adult Christ in "The Light of the 
World," which is said to be the most popular picture in Eng- 
land. It is reverent, beautiful and inspiring; but it does not 
quite satisfy. We leave behind our feelings of complete satis- 

57 



502 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



faction when we pass from the paintings of Jesus' childhood 
and youth to those of his ministry and fully realized divinity. 
It is not surprising that it should be so. No artist can paint 
far above his own head, or put upon canvas what was not 
first latent in his own soul; and what man is not confessedly 
beyond his ability when he essays the face of the Son of man? 




THE SHADOW OF DEATH — (w. HOLMAN HUNT, l82/ — ) 



Nevertheless, it is the adult Christ, and not the babe of 
Bethlehem nor yet the boy of Nazareth, that must answer our 
inquiries concerning the ideal of Jesus as reflected in art. 

The artists have shown their limitations in this, and it meets 
us at once in adult pictures of Jesus, that, unable to add to 
a human face a grace which they have not known, at least 

58 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 503 

in some degree, in human life, they have made divinity by 
subtraction where addition seemed impossible. Unable to 
attain that antithesis of manlikeness which Godlikeness might 




THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS — (BASSANO, I5IO-I592) 

afford, they have sought it in that other antithesis which is 
feminine. When the Church in the middle ages froze all pity 
from the heart of the Christ of its creeds, men found the 
incarnation of human gentleness and beauty in Mary. And 

59 



504 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



still it is often a womanly sweetness that shows in the face 
of the Christ of art. "The masculine," so the painters have 
seemed to say, "is the gross, the sensual, the aggressive, the 
belligerent. We will make our Christ with a woman's face, 
and add a beard." Popular thought is in accord with this 
conception. The newspapers have a standing word of reproach 




THE LAST SUPPER — ( RUBENS, I5//-1640) 



for any form of masculine or aggressive effort professedly 
Christian, and which they do not like; they speak of the alleged 
offender with reproach or sarcasm as a professed disciple of 
"the meek and lowly Jesus." They forget that Jesus was not 
meek in all aspects of his character. The astounding claims 
which he made concerning himself, the bitter controversies in 
which he engaged, the fierce denunciations which he hurled. 

60 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



505 



the vigor with which he used the whip of cords, all these are 
foreign to the popular thought of him as expressed in art and 
literature. 

Where the Christ is not represented as effeminate, he is 
often not virile. The picture which proved the turning point 



THE CRUCIFIXION — (MICHAEL ANGELO, I475-I564) 

in the career of Tissot is that of a ruined structure, in which 
sit a peasant and his wife, he stolid in his grief, she incon- 
solable; and beside them sits the Christ, in greater agony, 
bleeding, helpless, and leans his thorn-crowned head on the 

61 



506 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



shoulder of the man. It might well be that such a vision of 
the Christ who suffered with men would affect powerfully a 
self-indulgent worldling such as Tissot had been; and it would 
ill become any one to speak disparagingly of a painting which 
has so appealed to any thoughtful man. But it is not satis- 
factory. It is an impotent Christ that meets us there. There 
is no power in that wan, weak figure. Those pierced hands 
can neither beckon, nor invite, nor caress, nor uphold; they 




THE DEAD CHRIST — (FRA BARTOLOMMEO, I469-I517) 



cannot lift up the man, nor sustain the woman, nor rebuild the 
ruined structure. The stolid man is manly by comparison. 
He has no wisdom about the reason of it all, and he has little 
piety, but as Tissot says, he strives "to sit upright, and to play 
the man, even in misfortune." So far as the picture shows, 
whatever of resource remains of courage, strength, or hope, is 
in the man; the woman and the Christ are helpless. 

This is not the Christ as the gospels show him. He could 
save from the cross; he could encourage and give strength 

62 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



507 



to his disciples when he had risen from the dead. His was 
the strength and not theirs, in which they went out to preach 
and to rebuild a ruin. We never shall have a true picture of 
the Christ, nor a correct mental image of him, till we add 
power to his gentleness and majesty to his sufferings. 




JESUS AND THOMAS — (VAN DYCK, 1599-1641) 

To take another example from Tissot, and this time from 
"The Temptation;" it is a passive and puny Christ whom he 
represents, caught up to the mountain top by the mighty 
power of a Satan whose gigantic figure is athwart the sky. 
A suggestion of this same Miltonic greatness in Satan, and 

63 



5 o8 JESUS OF NAZARETH 

little more than sentimental strength in Jesus, is in Ary 
Scheffer's familiar picture of "The Temptation." On the other 
hand, Linson's fine water colors, which illustrate Dr. John 
Watson's new Life of the Master, more truly represent the 
temptation as spiritual, agreeing in this with the great painting 
of Cornicelius, and in each the Christ has at least spiritual 
strength capable of resistance. 




JESUS AMONG THE DOCTORS — (dOTTO, I276-I336) 

But if the pictures lack masculinity, they do not all lack 
majesty. There is a kingliness about Dore's "Triumphal 
Entry," and his "Christ leaving the Prretorium," whatever 
some of his other pictures may lack of devotional simplicity. 
There is self-contained authority in Bida's "The Calling of 
Matthew"; there is erect dignity and noble serenity in 
Shields' "Christ and Saint Peter." If Munkacsy's "Christ 

64 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



509 



before Pilate" shows us the face of a weary fanatic, it is at 
least a well-poised and perfectly erect figure that supports that 
face, and his "Ecce Homo" has a calm majesty and a certain 
heroic power in its suffering. If Da Vinci gives us a face too 
weak to satisfy our thoughts of the Christ, he also imparts a 
sublime dignity to the central figure in his "Last Supper" that 
has inspired reverence for centuries. If Raphael's "Draught 
of Fishes," with its cramped action and its impossible surround- 
ings, does not command the interest inspired by his madonnas, 




THE FINDING OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE — (w. HOLM AN HUNT, 1827 — ) 



his "Transfiguration" at least is full of a glory which is not 
that of Moses or Elijah, but of the glorified Christ. 

It is legitimate thus to group together in a single paragraph 
names of artists living and others long dead: for the present 
conception of Christ is formed, not alone by the paintings of 
living artists, but also by the living paintings of dead artists^ 
The past, so far as it has survived, has done so because it has 
reflected popular thought: generally speaking, it continues 
to survive, except, as it survives in technical treatises, only to 
the extent that it still reflects the ideals of men. The extant 
past, no less than the evolving present, is ours. Still, it is 

65 



5io 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



interesting and profitable to compare the general movements 
of the past with those which may be traced in contemporary 
art. 

Before turning aside for a brief comparison of present and 
former art, I take occasion to mention the head of Christ 
which is used as the frontispiece of this essay, and which I 




the adoration of the magi 
(albrecht altdorfer, 15 12) 



can but count among the most successful attempts to portray 
the face of Jesus. It is by an unknown artist, probably of the 
sixteenth century, and has never before been photographed. 

This painting, very much begrimed and defaced, came into 
this country some years ago with other paintings. An artist 
worked for months upon it before the full beauty of the draw- 

66 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



511 



ing and the harmony of the color appeared. In color and in 
outline it at once suggests Titian, and is worthy of the best 
period of that artist's work. It has all the strength of Titian's 
Christ in "The Tribute Money," but has a grace and winsome- 
ness which are lacking in that great painting. Whoever 
painted it, he was a master. The picture is of a face that 
inspires affection and confidence, and is the product not only 
of high art but of sincere religious feeling. 




PILATE WASHING HIS HANDS — (HANS HOLBEIN, I517) 



67 



5i2 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 




THE VISIT OF THE MAGI TO THE CAVE-BORN CHILD 
(FROM THE CODEX GRAECUS, IN VATICAN, l6l3 A. D.) 



VI— PAST AND PRESENT 



The art of the Church has not followed one continuous line 
of development. There have been long periods in which it 
has remained stationary, and others in which it has declined. 
Sometimes the Church, which had nourished and fostered art, 
so wrapped it about with swaddling bands of tradition that 
its life was strangled. Throughout the middle ages archi- 
tecture was deemed far more important than painting or 
sculpture. Following the Crusades came a great era of cathe- 
dral building. Painting made little advance while the nations 
of Christian Europe were erecting their great Gothic churches; 
and, when artists wrought at all, as in copying venerable 
manuscripts with illuminated initials and illustrations wrought 
into the text, they slavishly followed the lines of old Byzantine 
art. As early as the ninth century there was some attempt at 
painting on church walls, but there was no originality and little 
beauty. Architecture, the most stable of the arts, went for- 
ward, but painting, most mobile of them, stood still or went 

68 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



513 



back. There was increased rigidity of line, and greater coarse- 
ness of coloring. 

To Giotto, more than to any other one man, belongs credit 
for the beginnings of better things. Working with water 
colors on fresh plaster, he brought mural painting to recogni- 
tion. Glass painting, which had prevailed in the North, and 




THE RAISING OF LAZARUS — ( REMBRANDT, 1642) 

mosaic work, which Italy had inherited from Constantinople, 
gave place to wall painting as the principal field for pictorial 
representation. There was no striking individuality in the 
faces of Giotto's characters; they were practically all alike, 
and his draperies were scant, and his perspective showed no 
great depth or distance. His animals were little, under-sized, 

69 



5H 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



wooden things, and his houses were frail and cramped, and his 
trees and rocks, monotonously alike, looked as if cut from 
cardboard. But his principal characters always told the story 
of the pictures with directness and effectiveness, and the pic- 




CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS — (DURER, 1512) 



tures, crude enough in many ways, were characterized by 
taste, discrimination, and, what was most important of all, 
originality. Giotto died in 1337, and a new school began with 
him; but for another century art was hampered by tradition. 



70 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



515 



In the fifteenth century occurred the Renaissance, a period 
of revolution and of new birth. Man and nature had long been 




THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN — (FINIGUERRA, I45 2 ) 



strangers to each other in the world of art. Painters had asked, 
not how things looked, but how things had been represented. 
Nature had been counted sinful, and religion a more or less 

7i 



5i6 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



artificial expedient to save man from nature. Artists had 
taken their ideals from tradition, not life. The new birth of 
art from this death-like thralldom of conventionality reached 
every nation of Europe. In the North, where there were fewer 
theoretical ideals of structure, came a new realism, blunt and 




THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI — (FINIGUERRA, I452) 

coarse sometimes, but sincere. It developed into the strong- 
lined work of Holbein with his very human German figures 
full of life and action. It displayed itself in the pictures of 
Altdorfer, white-lined against dark backgrounds, with the full 
intent of the painter revealed in clean-cut contrast. It found 

72 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



517 



expression in the wood-cuts and etchings of Durer, with no 
blurred or obscure or conventional devices, but every line, 
sharp and distinct, telling its story with originality and power. 
It approached perfection in the etchings of Rembrandt, with 
lightly drawn lines but strong figures, and truth in them all. 
It developed eccentricity in the use of lines, as in the work of 
Claude Mellan, who discarded cross-lines, and made all his 
shading by the thickening of parallel lines, and who illustrated 
the mechanical perfection of his work in his one-line portrait 
of Christ. 




THE LAST SUPPER — (LEONARDO DA VINCI, I452-I519) 

The painting of the North, too, took on new character. 
Living men and women, not mere lay-figures, took place in 
flesh that was almost warm to the touch, in the work of 
Rubens, and his art reached a higher level of taste and skill 
in his pupil Van Dyck; while Rembrandt, the great painter of 
Protestantism, as well in his paintings as in his etchings, 
wrought forms of enduring strength. 

In Italy the whole atmosphere was charged with the new 
life of art. There was less discarding of old ideals, but the 
new wine overflowed the old bottles, and new art forms were 



73 



5i8 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



created. Man now rediscovered the world of nature. Not till 
much later did Claude Lorraine, in France, make paintings of 
scenery popular, with foliage perfectly drawn, but with the 
figures so overwhelmed by the landscape that he was accus- 
tomed to say he made no extra charge for the people in his 
paintings; the real discovery of nature was the discovery of 
man. The artists now wrought with new strength, and 
imparted to their work an individuality till then unknown. It 




THE LAST SUPPER — (FRA ANGELICO, I387-I455) 



displayed itself in the one strong painting of Verrocchio, "The 
Baptism of Jesus," whose foremost angel is said to have been 
painted by the artist's pupil, Leonardo da Vinci; and in da 
Vinci's great painting of the "Last Supper"; and in the few 
extant paintings of his pupil Luini. It took ornate form in 
the work of the Lippis, father and son, and in Botticelli. Fra 
Angelico gave it grace and delicacy born of fasting and prayer, 
and Raphael imparted to it strength and enduring beauty. 
Art was born again, and in a good time; for the invention of 

74 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



519 



printing, the discovery of the New World, and the Reforma- 
tion were parallel movements outward of the mind of man. 
The Renaissance belonged with all these, for it was a breaking 
of old and hampering traditions, and a self-assertion of free- 
dom and sincerity. It was expressed in many and varying 
forms — in Durer's bold and expressive lines and in Titian's 
kneading over his thick paint with his fingers till models stood 
transferred to canvas in the warmth and color of veritable 
flesh. 




THE LAST SUPPER — (ZIMMERMANN, 1852 — ) 



Into this new world of art the Christ entered, and his 
entrance gave new life to art. It was a Christ more human, 
sharing more the life of men, whom the artists painted. The 
atmosphere of the Church was all-pervading and not always 
favorable to freedom; but the great paintings of the world 
were then wrought by men of skill and earnestness. 

It is interesting to remind ourselves again that the likeness 
of Christ is now widely disseminated not alone by single paint- 
ings, but by the multiplying power of the printing press. The 
story of the beginnings of plate engraving 1 for the purpose of 

75 



520 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



printing may not be familiar to all who read this chapter. It 
came about almost by accident. 

In the Roman churches of the middle ages, great skill was 
developed by the goldsmiths in the engraving of the "pax," 
a little silver plate on which the host was to be elevated in 
the service of the mass. The design was cut out of the flat 
plate of silver, and the lines were filled with a black composi- 
tion to bring out the design. The plate thus completed was 
called a niello. Maso di Finiguerra, a goldsmith, about 1452, 
was experimenting with a nearly finished pax, by pouring 




CHRIST AT EMMAUS — (FRA ANGELICO, I387-I455) 



melted sulphur over it, the better to test his workmanship. 
He found that he could obtain better results by filling the lines 
with ink and rubbing it against dampened paper. A roller 
soon was added, and a smooth impression obtained; and a new 
art was given to the world. The very first plate ever so 
employed in printing, as books on this subject declare, was 
"The Coronation of the Virgin," in 1452, or as some authors 
state, in 1460. Prints from this first plate are, of course, 
superlatively rare; but one of these priceless little sheets has 
been loaned me for this volume, with another, "The Nativity," 
equally precious and more perfect in execution by the same 

76 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



521 



engraver. They are here reproduced in the exact size of the 
originals. 

The reproduction of these first two prints in this latest 
volume illustrates the extent to which the art of the past has 
been perpetuated by the press. It is a far cry from this begin- 
ning until now, when almost every great painting of merit is 




CHRIST AT EMMAUS — ( REMBRANDT, 1634) 

photographed, and the results are brought together in startling 
juxtaposition. The art of all the intervening generations is 
now ours, with the art of the present as well. 

If one were seeking absolute justice in dealing with periods 
of art, he would compare only those that are completed. He 
would not compare current art with the art of the past, for 

77 



522 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



the art of the present is good, bad, and indifferent, and the 
art of the past that has survived is winnowed out of many ages, 
and the best of those ages as judged by themselves and the 
generations following. The most enthusiastic devotee of 
modern art would not pretend that any one generation is 
producing as many masterpieces as all past generations. A 




CHRIST HEALING A CHILD — (GABRIEL MAX, 184O — ) 



comparison, if made at all, must be within limits, and must 
consider the art of the present time in its general ideals and 
movements, as compared with the general trend of that from 
which it diverges. 

A modern artist can hardly place himself, religiously and 
intellectually, on a common level with the artist of the six- 

78 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 523 

teenth century. His thought of God, the world, revelation, 
and the mission of Christ all are, or ought to be, wider. A 
Fra Angelico Christ would be an affectation in a modern artist. 
A Fra Filippo Lippi Madonna would be impossible to an artist 
living among modern men and women. To what shall he 
aspire? 

He may imitate the ideals and lives of the old artists, but 
his work will lack originality and strength. The old masters 
did better, in their way, than he can do. He may attempt 
an idealism like that of the English Pre-Raphaelites, but his 
work, however rich and interesting, will lack simplicity, and 
will be in danger of lacking sincerity. Some modern artists 
have painted in each of these ways, and their work does not 
lack interest. But the work that lays hold on men's hearts is 
that which makes real either the Christ who lived in Galilee, 
or the Christ who now lives among men. 

In two very different ways modern art manifests its tendency 
to realism. One group of artists, of whom the best known 
recent representative is Tissot, seeks to reproduce the historic 
situation, to photograph the local surroundings, and to secure 
in the drapery and background all that modern Palestine can 
disclose of actual conditions as they were in the time of our 
Lord. 

The other school is represented by Beraud, L'llerrritte and 
Von Uhde. It leaves Palestine and its ways and people 
entirely out of account, and finds its backgrounds in the paint- 
er's own vicinity. Zimmerman's "Last Supper" dresses the 
disciples in the garb of men of today. It is very different from 
Da Vinci's or Fra Angelico's, but neither of these is at all true 
to Palestine life. 

But when have painters stopped for anachronism, or by what 
law of art are they enjoined from it? The older painters in 
their naivete painted a Christ of their own nation; or if they 
attempted to draw him as he was, they succeeded merely in 
making him foreign to their own time, in a forced solemnity 
that consisted largely in strangeness. If Durer had painted 
other than a German Christ, it would not have been the Christ 

79 



524 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



of Tissot's close study of the land and its people. The Christ 
he painted was German because the artist knew no other. But 




"SAVE, LORD, OR I PERISH!" — (FREDERIC SHIELDS) 

Luther's great ambition in his translation of the New Testa- 
ment was "to make the apostles speak German," and if the 

80 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 5 2 5 

translator may attempt this with intent, why may not the 
painter? 

In the convent of San Marco in Florence, trebly honored 
by the names of Savonarola, Fra Bartolommeo and Fra 
Angelico, one finds the apostles represented in the garb of 
the convent. The last supper is a sacrament administered by 
the Lord to these brethren. Sweetest and simplest of these 
adaptations, the two disciples at Emmaus are two brothers of 
the order, welcoming Jesus to the convent. It is a picture 
of Christian hospitality as beautiful and devout as, in its 
setting, it is natural and appropriate. But the modern paint- 
ing of L'Hermitte with the disciples as hard-toiling peasants, 
exhibits the same principle differently applied. What the pic- 
ture lacks in historic accuracy — which is totally disregarded — 
it gains in naturalness and impressiveness. 

As compared with ancient paintings, it might be afTLrmed 
that modern religious art is more learned and less reverent. 

But it is difficult to determine just how reverent the ancient 
artists were. Raphael could paint "The Fornarina" with as 
good grace as "The Madonna," and Rubens was quite as intent 
on displaying the charms of the Flemish beauties who furnished 
his Scripture models as of interpreting real Bible scenes. Nor 
are we safe in affirming that modern art lacks reverence be- 
cause it savors less of the cloister and more of the life of the 
day. Jesus himself lived among men, and the pictures that 
reproduce the atmosphere of a given age may most truly inter- 
pret to that age the fitting background for a portrait of the 
Christ. 

Some of the modern paintings are weakly sentimental. They 
appeal only to a passing fancy. If they are other than imita- 
tions they depend upon eccentricity rather than religious feel- 
ing and sincerity. They proceed from a wish to make a pretty 
picture rather than a passionate desire to reveal the Christ to 
men. But not all modern paintings are of this character; nor 
were all the old masters free from the faults of modern artists. 

81 



526 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



VII— THE CHRIST OF TO-DAY 



This essay, it can hardly need to be said, attempts no cata- 
logue of painters, ancient or modern, and does not undertake 
in any way to be exhaustive. The most that it can hope is 
to sketch very briefly a few of the things that are representa- 
tive. I wish to mention a very few modern artists, and to 
characterize the Christ whom they are revealing to the people 
of to-day. Some of them rest their reputations as painters 




CHRIST AND THE YOUNG RULER — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



of the Christ upon a single great picture, as Burne-Jones in 
his "Mary at the Sepulchre," and L'Hermitte, in the painting 
already referred to. Munkacsy, also, is known almost wholly 
by his "Christ before Pilate," though the thin-faced enthusiast 
in this picture, dignified only by his calmness, meekness and 
erect poise, lacks the heroic power of his "Ecce Homo." 

But most of the modern painters who have made a distinct 
impression have done so in series of illustrations cov- 

82 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



527 



ering practically the whole of the life of Christ. Of these 
are Dore, whose works are careless in execution, and weari- 
some with their long perpendicular lines, but not lacking in 
dignity and a certain inflexible grace. Overbeck's series is dis- 
tinctly conventional and academic, but reverent and sincere. 
Bida, too, in his illustrated Bible series, gives us a Christ who 
moves through the whole series of incidents of the gospels. 
And, whether Jesus sits passive and meditative by the sea, or 




THE MAN CHRIST JESUS — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



stands before the booth of Matthew, and, erect and calm, calls 
this man of affairs from his business with assurance and self- 
control, the Christ is lovable and impressive. 

Among all the modern artists, none holds a place so dear 
among the people as Hofmann. If his Christ lacks masculinity, 
he does not lack lovableness. The two heads of Christ most 
popular in the art stores are from details of his pictures — the 
boy Jesus in the temple, and the man Jesus looking upon the 
clean, upright young ruler with love and invitation in his face. 

83 



528 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



It is not too much to say that this picture of the face of Christ 
has supplanted in popular affection the thorn-crowned "Ecce 
Homo" of Guido Reni, and is, next to Da Vinci's great paint- 
ing, the best loved head of Christ. 

Tissot, too, presents his Christ, not in a single scene, but 
in a series covering the whole extent of the land in which he 
lived. In every valley between the Jordan and the sea he has 
portrayed him; on every hill top from Nazareth to Bethlehem 




ECCE HOMO — (GUIDO RENI, 1575-1642) 

he has painted him, walking over the rocky hills, resting or 
teaching by the wayside, or in the home or on the boat, and 
the Christ who appears in all dignifies and beautifies every 
scene and leaves his own image, clear and noble, after the last 
landscape has faded away. 

In these paintings the effect is cumulative. The Christ is 
seen, not in a single incident which might not fitly represent 
his life, but in the whole round of his blessed activity, con- 

84 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



5 2 9 



sistent and abiding 



the Christ of the whole of human life. 
And when, from one of these series, the head is presented in 
detail, the beholder mentally places that lovable face and 




CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN — (HOFMANN, 1824 — ) 



figure, not simply back in the paintings from one of which it 
has been taken, nor yet alone in the scenes of his earthly 
ministry, but into every normal and justifiable relation of life; 
and seeing him there, cries with new and reverent meaning — 

85 



53o 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



"Behold the Man." The Ecce Homo of to-day is the ever- 
living Christ. 

Notable among American achievements in religious art, and 
thoroughly characteristic as well, are the water colors of Mr. 
Corwin Knapp Linson. His pictures are based upon actual 
study in the Holy Land; and though the study was neither so 
long nor so arduous as that of Tissot, he has caught the local 
color admirably. His pictures are used to illustrate Dr. John 




'COME, LORD JESUS, AND BE OUR GUEST" — (FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 



Watson's "Life of the Master," and are one of the best adapta- 
tions of the new three-color work to serious book-making. 
Since my own visit to Palestine I have turned to Linson's 
pictures with satisfaction, and I count them the best example 
of American art dealing with the life of Christ in its touch 
with the soil of Palestine. 

Among American illustrators Frank Beard holds a somewhat 
unique place in his use of caricature in religious journalism. 
As his pictures are designed to be sermons, they occasionally 

86 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



531 



introduce the person of Christ, rebuking hypocrisy or rescuing 
the abandoned. Hastily made, and with all the limitations that 
accompany the cartoon of the popular newspaper, they are 
always reverent, and in thorough earnest. While Mr. Beard 




THE HOLY FAMILY — ( FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 



is fearless in introducing the Christ into his every-dav cartoons, 
he draws the figure with reserve. The cartoon entitled "The 
Lost Sheep" is one of the few in which he has drawn the face 
of the Christ, a more frequent attitude being that in "Behold, 

87 



53 2 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



I stand at the door and knock," which Mr. Beard counts his 
best cartoon introducing the person of the Saviour. 

Among American artists who are seeking to interpret the 
Christ in the free life among men, and in the clear light of 
the wide out-of-doors, is Mr. Alfred Juergens. Strong, orig- 
inal, and free, his paintings are full of life and power. He is 




THE ANGEL AND THE SHEPHERDS — (FRITZ VON UHDE, 1846 — ) 



now engaged in painting two very large mural paintings for 
a church in Chicago. I am able to reproduce his study for the 
head of Christ as it is to be used in one of these — the bless- 
ing of the children. 

I have already mentioned the best known painter of the 
peasant Christ, Fritz von Uhde of Munich. At a glance one 

88 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



533 



sees his method, which is to place the Christ among German 
peasants of to-day, and to have him seem at home among them. 
His "Come, Lord Jesus, and be our Guest," is an invitation 
offered by a German rustic in heavy wooden shoes, and sec- 
onded by his sturdy but reverent wife. The old man in the 
corner — a common old German grandsire — comes forward with 
bent form to add his humble welcome, and the children, 
chubby, German children with good appetites, stand behind 
their chairs till he is seated. The sermon on the mount is 




ONE OF FRITZ VON UHDE S CHERUBS 



preached to peasant mothers and their children, and farmers 
with rakes over their shoulders, fresh from the hay-field. The 
angel who wakes the German shepherds on Christmas eve is 
a sixteen-year-old German girl with wings. The sermon from 
the boat is preached to just such girls who forget, while listen- 
ing to Jesus, to plash their bare feet in the water, and to the 
fathers and brothers and mothers of these same gfirls. The 
Holy Family is equipped with an inexpensive babv-basket, and 
Mary is the most lovable little German mother, bending over 

8 9 



534 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



the basket, while in the distance the German Joseph saws wood. 
L'Hermitte has given us but a single well-known painting 
of the Christ of the peasants, and Zimmermann but two or three. 
Uhde, on the contrary, has painted many, and is painting 
more, and the seriousness of his purpose grows more evident, 
and marks him as the best exponent of this type of modern art. 




STUDY FOR THE HEAD OF CHRIST — (ALFRED TUERGENS, IQ03) 

Uhde's pictures branded him as a heretic. Artists denounced 
him for breaking away from their traditions. Theologians 
stood astounded at his heterodoxy. The emperor made no 
secret of his displeasure. But still people looked at the 
pictures. They could be denounced, but not despised. They 
were unconventional, but unmistakably reverent. They 
revealed the democratic Christ, independent of ecclesiastics 

90 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



535 



and of traditions, coming close to the every-day life of men. 
And men saw the Saviour anew in them, and the artist's fame 
grew. To the emperor's disgust he became professor in the 
Royal Academy, and both artists and ministers of the gospel 
see in his work a revelation of the nearness of Christ to men. 
Some recent painters have become unconscious theologians 
and politicians in their portrayal of the democratic Christ. 
These simple peasants in the paintings of Von Uhde — they are 
no candidates for ordination; neither are they henceforth to 




THE GREAT PHYSICIAN — (GABRIEL MAX, 184O — ) 



be spiritually subject to the orders of others. Others wiser 
may teach them; others holier may guide them; but the Christ 
himself is near them, and who shall stand between? 

The difference between Uhde in grouping common people 
about the person of Jesus, and the painters of the middle ages, 
is less than might be supposed. These, also, filled up their 
"holy families" from people about them. But Holbein put 
German nobility and Raphael painted prosperous Italians into 
their paintings — people who could afford to buy the paintings 

91 



536 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



afterward. While Uhde's models know little of art, they may 
know something of their Lord. At any rate, the apparent 
motive of these older artists is hardly possible to the man 
who seeks the faces of the poor to fill in the background of 
his paintings of the Christ. However faulty they may be as 
works of art, they are not open to the suspicion of being 




THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD — (f. BUCHER) 



mercenary, and if they strain somewhat after novelty they 
exhibit a devout spirit which even the most severe critic must 



recognize. 



The methods of modern painters have unquestionably made 
Jesus more human, more a man among men; and, in this art 
reflects the spirit of the age. Yet just here he appears 

92 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



537 



the more transcendent, not by reason of a halo or by arbi- 
trary position upon the canvas, but by right of his inherent 
dignity and power. Indeed, we meet a notable discovery, 
namely, that the Christ ideal will bear transportation out of 
the conventions of recognized art, and of the environments 
of actual history, and still retain its power. Next to Von 
Uhde's paintings should be placed L'Hermitte's ''Supper at 
Emmaus," in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which shows 




CHRIST WITH PEASANTS — (l'heRMITTE) 



us a peasant Christ, among peasant disciples. The solemnity 
and reverence of the painting are as unquestionable as its 
spiritual power. It dignifies not only peasant life in Galilee, 
but the common life of all humble followers. 

Modern art has shown some even more daring innovations, 
and they are not wholly without value as interpretations. The 
paintings of Jean Beraud are an excellent example and an 
extreme one as well. Making his earlier paintings of modern 
life from the window of a cab in the streets of Paris, or from 

93 



538 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



a house boat on the Seine, he has introduced the identical 
types, costumes and all, into his scenes from the life of Christ. 
Mary Magdalene lies at his feet in her Parisian ball dress in 
a well-appointed Paris dining-room, while Simon the Pharisee 
stands by, well dressed, but not over dressed, well bred as the 
world counts breeding, a well-fed, prosperous Parisian gentle- 
man with moustache turning gray, courteous but cynical, and 
his guests sit forward in their chairs with languid curiosity, or 




JESUS AMONG PHARISEES — (jEAN BERAUD) 

mild suprise, or stand and look at her with supercilious pity or 
easy-going scorn, or in the background pass joking remarks 
about the intruder and her near approach to Jesus. Prominent 
living men of Paris sat — unconsciously and unwillingly — for 
their portraits in this painting, which transports the life of 
Jesus into present-day society, where he finds well-bred cyni- 
cism and lack of sympathy. As of old the proud have 
rejected him, while still, as then, poor, penitent souls are for- 
given and blessed. And the Master sits in the midst of those 

94 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



539 



representatives of cultured but godless society, a rebuke to 
the hypocrisy and veneered goodness of modern respectability. 
This picture is now interdicted in Paris because of its person- 
ality. My friend obtained a copy with considerable difficulty. 
In another painting by the same artist, the Master is on the 
way to Calvary. Modern faces view his passion with emotions 
varying from heart-felt grief to undisturbed composure; your 




Copyright by Braun Clement et cie. 



CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS — (jEAN BERAUD) 



man of the world is there, not much disturbed if this has no 
effect on trade; your well dressed blasphemer raises his well 
trained voice; and yonder a misguided workman, hating the 
good with the sham that he has seen and suffered, stoops for 
a stone to fling at him. In still another picture the Crucified 
is taken from the cross, and there is modern grief and modern 
pity and modern loyalty that will be faithful unto death; but 

95 



540 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



it is the background that is notable in this picture; for the 
cross stands not on Calvary, but on Montmartre, and yonder 
is the city, not Jerusalem, but Paris, sleeping, smoking, sin- 
ning Paris, all unconscious of the cloud that gathers above 
the cross in sight, all heedless of the tragedies enacted within 
her over which the heavens grow dark, and oblivious in her 
pleasure-seeking of the low-browed anarchist standing on the 




Copyright by Braun Clement et cfe. 



THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS — (jEAN BERAUD) 



slope and pouring out the curses of the oppressed and tyran- 
nized against the city where Christ is crucified in the wrongs 
his brethren suffer. All this is anachronism of the most daring 
kind, and if at first thought it seems irreverent, it certainly is 
not so intended, and there is a sermon in it. 

The French pictures commonly lack the depth and tender- 
ness of the best of the German; but there is often a keen dis- 

96 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



541 



cernment and a trenchant satire that is most effective. One 
of these by Debat-Possan takes a powerful hold on the imag- 
ination. It represents the horrors of modern war, the slaughter 
of men, the massacre of women, the wanton destruction of 
homes, and it draws both victims and victors from portraits 











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Copyright, 1901, by Braun Clement et cie. 
THE SCOURGING OF JESUS — (JEAN BERAUD) 



of historic characters. There stand Francis I, Concle, "le 
grande" Louis XIV, Coligny, and other heroes of the bloody 
field, regarding their devilish work with complacency, while 
above them, on a little elevation, appears the Christ, saying, 
"Why have ye done this?" It is a picture as full of pathos as 
of satire, and is an effective sermon in favor of peace. 



97 




Copyright by Braun Clement et cie. 

'if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" — (joseph-aubert) 

98 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



543 



Among the most sympathetic and spiritual of contemporary 
European artists is Joseph-Aubert, five of whose recent pic- 
tures are included in this volume. They are as tender in their 
religious feelings as they are faithful in technique, and, like 
Hebert's "Betrayal," they appeal at once to the heart of the 
beholder. 

Among young English painters, none better deserves men- 
tion than Frederic Shields. His "Good Shepherd" is gentle 




"why have ye done this?" — (debat-ponsan) 

and sincere; and his "Christ and Peter" is full of religious 
feeling. It is said that one poor, sinful man, looking at this 
picture, and feeling himself sinking in his shameful life, sobbed, 
"He can save me, too," and echoed Peter's prayer, and heard 
in his renewed soul the answer. 

It would be pleasant to say a word of each of the newer 
paintings which are here presented, but they tell their own 
story. Whether we view the Christ in Ruederstein's "Suffer 

99 



544 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



little children," or in the faithful paintings of Kirchbach, or 
in Anderson's three scenes of the Lord and the Adulteress, 
or in Hugo Mieth's "The Widow's Mite," the Christ whom 
we behold is one to love and honor and follow. In Girardet's 
"On the Way to Emmaus," just from the easel, the face of 




"BEHOLD, I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK !" — (FRANK BEARD, I902) 



the Saviour is dim, and our eyes are holden, but our hearts 
burn within us as we walk with him by the way. In Wehle's 
"Behold, I send you forth," we walk with him again, this time 
through the fields. It is not that we may pluck the ripening- 
grain, and rub it in our hands. It is the harvest of the world, 
and the master is calling his disciples to him, one by one, giv- 

100 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 545 

ing each his mission, and telling each to be faithful to the 
end. We need not ask whether such pictures are to live; it 
is enough that they now live, and that they faithfully interpret 
the Christ to men. 

VIII— THE CHRIST OF TO-MORROW 

I have noted the double tendency to realism, and have com- 
mended it. It would be pleasant to say that modern religious 




THE LAST COMMUNION — (.TOSEPH-AUBERT, 1900) 

art has also a tendency to idealism; but if this is true I do not 
know where to look for it. Our artists are painting land- 
scapes or portraits, or illustrating for the magazines. For 
these are the things that buy bread and butter, of which artists 
get, on an average, all too little. But the time is ripe for 
another movement such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 
started to give to the world, till it lost its impetus in affectation 
and conspicuous lack of that very simplicity which was its 
original end and aim. If the American painters of to-day can 
forget for a time their necessary pot-boilers, and paint for us 

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THE BETRAYAL — (HEBERT) 



102 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



547 



new and strong pictures of the ideal Christ, they will not lack 
an audience, and I believe they will also find purchasers. 

There still is room for the artist who would paint the Christ. 
Among all the thousands of paintings of him, the seeker feels 
a singular lack. There is lack, certainly, of proportion. There 
are Nativities enough, and Crucifixions more than enough; and 
it is hard to say what incident in the life of Christ may not be 
illustrated with a great painting. Yet there is a real lack of 
pictures that illustrate the mature life and ministry of Jesus in 




Copyright, 1899, by Braun Clement et cie. 
THE MISSION OF THE APOSTLES — (jOSEPH-AUBERT, 1 899) 

a way that appeals to the imagination of to-day. The world is 
ready for more great paintings, and even for paintings not 
technically great, if sympathetic, strong, and religious in feel- 
ing, which show the Christ who lived among men, teaching, 
healing, helping, inspiring, and creating in them new hopes, 
aspirations and ideals. 

We have been noting some differences between ancient and 
modern art. These concern themselves chiefly with the 
aspects in which Christ is presented and the scenes in which 
he is made to appear. It is most surprising that the paintings 

103 




JESUS BEARING THE CROSS — (w. A. BOUGUEREAU) 



104 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



549 



of different countries and ages exhibit so much that is common 
in their likeness of Christ. Spite of all their wide variety, there 
is enough common to them all so that one is never in doubt 
for a moment as to the person intended to represent the Christ. 
And, however inadequately he is painted, it is seldom that the 
artist has not attempted his best. The Christ of art is never 
adequate; but he seldom lacks attractiveness or some element 
of grace. 




Copyright, 1903, by Braun Clement et cie. 
THE CRUCIFIXION — (jOSEPH-AUBERT, I903) 



In all great paintings that portray him, the Christ is the 
principal, though not always the central figure. Even in the 
crowded canvases of Paul Veronese, there is no mistaking the 
chief character. Nor has modern art been at all disposed to 
assign him any less conspicuous position. The light that 
emanates from the Babe in Correggio's "Holy Night," and 
irradiates the face of the mother and the interior of the stable, 
is the same that in Merson's "Repose of Egypt" emanates 

i°5 



55o 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



from the sleeping infant, and that in Holman Hunt's "Light 
of the World" streams from the person of the Saviour of men. 
Even in the most daring of modern paintings the Christ is 
almost if not wholly unchanged. Very seldom does an artist 
put him into modern garb, or make him other than men have 
supposed him. Men change, and their costumes change, but 
the unchanging Christ stands among them, is loved or scorned, 
accepted or rejected, honored or crucified by men and women 




Copyright, 1903, by Braun Clement et cie. 
THE RETURN FROM CALVARY — (jOSEFH-AUBERT) 



of to-day. Even so radical and modern a painter as Beraud has 
not had courage, if indeed he so desired, to create a new ideal 
of the Christ; so far as his brush bears testimony, it is to the 
unchanging Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and forever. 

With such an ideal fixed in the mind of artists and of the 
people, the Christ of art cannot well become degraded, nor 
cease to display spirituality and sympathy, whatever the figure 
may lack in strength and in the technique of art itself. We 

io6 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



551 



have in art and in literature what we may assume is a tolerably 
fixed ideal. 

Modern painters have not lowered this conception of him. 
The works of Hofmann and Plockhorst, of Munkacsy and 
Gabriel Max, whatever may be said of their enduring- quality, 
do not fail in setting forth a gracious, dignified and adorable 
character. Whatever their failings, we may well be devoutly 
thankful for the sweet tenderness of Plockhorst's "Good Shep- 
herd," and the pathos and benevolence of Gabriel Max's 




Copyright, 1903, Braun Clement et cie. 
ON THE WAY TO EMMAUS — (dRARDET, I903) 



"Great Physician." It is in such themes as these that modern 
art has done its best. Of Gethsemanes and of Crucifixions 
there have been no lack in mediaeval art, but if the temper of 
the present age may be estimated by the modern paintings that 
may be called truly popular, it is distinctly humanitarian, for 
we shall find those paintings to be in larger proportion than 
those that exhibit him in his teaching, feeding, shepherding, 
healing and helping, rather than in those that appeal more to 
the love of the mystical, or to the contemplation of his phys- 
ical sufferings. It cannot be denied that in all this, art has 

107 




HEAD OF CHRTST — ( WOLTER -5IGORA ) 



1 08 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



553 



been in close accord with the progress of modern theology. 

In all this, modern art has exhibited no lack of fidelity to 
the truth as it is in Christ, and there is a distinct return toward 
the dominant conception of the early Church. In answer to 
the question what pictures of Christ are most called for, the 
manager of a house that deals in one-cent half-tone reproduc- 
tions answered, that, as a series, those of Hofmann are most 
in demand, with 'The Boy Christ in the Temple" the most 







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Copyright, 1895, by Braun Clement, et cie. 
CHRIST AND THE ADULTERESS (A. A. AMDERSON) 

popular; and that among pictures of the adult Christ the one 
sold in largest numbers is Plockhorst's "Good Shepherd." 
This is a notable change since the day when Guido Reni sent 
forth his sorrowful and thorn-crowned "Ecce Homos" by the 
score. It reminds us at once of Stanley's declaration that the 
religion of the early Church "was in one word, the religion of 
the Good Shepherd. The kindness, the courage, the beauty, 
the grace, of the Good Shepherd, was to them, if we may say 
so, prayer book and articles, creed and canons, all in one. 

109 



554 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



They looked on that figure, and it conveyed to them all they 
wanted." 

What wonder that the face of the Christ should be the per- 
petual challenge and the despair of artists? What wonder that 
they should have failed to express all the glory of him in whom 
men saw the life of the Father? It could not be otherwise. If 
the artist's best work gives expression to one phase of the 




THE WIDOW'S MITE — (HUGO MIETH, 1899) 



beauty of his life, but ever suggests the lack of something 
which no human brush can paint, it is but what we might 
expect. We should need to add together all the elements of 
dignity and beauty and sweetness and strength of all the artists, 
and still we should lack a complete picture of him. The face 
and character of the Christ stand as a perpetual exhortation. 
The likeness of Christ ennobles our daily tasks and exalts our 
ideal of the good and true and beautiful in human life. 

no 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



555 



We set out to explore briefly the world of art in an effort 
to answer the question, Who is the Christ whom the artists 
have found in popular thought and given back again in their 
paintings? Hastily we have looked at representative paintings 
of the past and the present, of our own nation and of other 
nations. We have not been satisfied; we are still seeking the 




'suffer little children to come to me" — (ruederstein, 1893) 



face which we have almost discovered. But we have found a 
surprising consistency, a high ideal, and a face and figure 
which, however disappointing, are never vulgar or uncouth, 
never base or suggestive of evil, but always reverent, sincere 
and noble. 

I had finished the manuscript of this book and laid it away 
to be sent to the printer on the following Monday. When I 



in 



556 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



went to preach on the intervening Sunday, in another pulpit 
than my own, I found in the study of the church which I visited 
a copy of Hofmann's Christ, and it impressed me anew with its 
lifelikeness and its lovableness. I could not help asking myself. 
How should I feel toward such a man if I were to meet him 
face to face? What qualities might I expect to find in the soul 
behind such a face? 

If we should meet in real life the Man whom the painters have 
seen and shown to us, with form erect and imperial, but manner 




"BEHOLD, I SEND YOU FORTH !" — (j. R. WEHLE, igOO) 

and bearing gracious and kindly, with face compassionate, 
sensitive, pure and sympathetic, with eyes tender, penetrating 
and affectionate, we should instantly be attracted to him. We 
would welcome acquaintance with him. We would give him 
our confidence. We should be sure that we could trust him. 
We could not think of doubting his sincerity, his purity of 
soul, or the earnestness of his life. And if we were to know 
him in such various relations as the painters show him, in 
scenes of festivity and of mourning, among the multitude and 
alone, among close companions and in the hands of his 

112 



AS ART REVEALS HIM 



557 



enemies, and always found him, as the painters show him, calm, 
gentle, and full of all human grace and loveliness, we could not 














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THE GOOD SHEPHERD — (PLOCKHORST, 1825 — ) 



help but love him. How thankful, then, ought we to be, for 
pictures that so impress him, in every age from infancy to the 
grave, upon the imagination of little children and of men and 

"3 



558 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



women. To these the Christ of art is a veritable, even though 
a partial, revelation, of God's love and grace disclosed in the 
life of Jesus of Nazareth. 

Nor can we count the paintings as failures that fall below our 
ideal. They enlarge and exalt the imagination even when they 
impose limits upon it. Happily we still have the second com- 
mandment, and are forbidden to count any work of art a 
finality. We are at liberty to love the paintings that help us 
and to outgrow them when they fetter us, and ever to seek 
for that which exalts our conception of Jesus. The ear is not 
the only avenue to the soul; the eye, too, has its revelation. 
The good spirit of God, by whom the Word of life was revealed, 
still accompanies the preaching of that Word; and the same 
Spirit that gives wisdom to him who preaches gives grace to 
him who paints in an honest endeavor to make real the Christ 
to men. Increasingly may men labor to disclose and to dis- 
cern "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the 
face of Jesus Christ. " 




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